Winter Salad

I love salad bars.  Endless combinations and so many delicious flavors.  But, so many tasty topping options that I would never in a million years purchase for my own home because we wouldn’t be able to eat them fast enough before they went bad.

There is a grocery store near my home, which will remain nameless, that I have a really, really hard time shopping in.  It’s overpriced and pretentious, in my opinion.  But, damn it if they don’t have the best salad bar ever.  I have been known to let my guard down on days that I am struggling a bit and know my options are: don’t eat, eat stale marshmallows and chocolate from the back of the cupboard or venture out for a salad.  I am a breastfeeding mom… it is clear what the responsible choice is here.

They recently had an amazing winter salad with creamy balsamic vinaigrette.  I figured this was something I could recreate at home, because at $8.99 a pound, my salad bar weakness gets expensive quickly.  This girl doesn’t just get a cute little salad.

The most difficult (and by most, I mean not at all) part of this recipe was recreating the creamy balsamic vinaigrette.  By all means, feel free to use a traditional vinaigrette if that suits you.  But this is a nice twist on a traditional salad dressing and it has a healthier modification that most ‘creamy’ style dressings usually don’t have.

Next, peel dice and roast 2 sweet potatoes with a little olive oil, salt and pepper at 400 for 30 minutes.

Don’t throw those veggie peels away!  Gather them in a gallon ziplock bag and throw them in the freezer.  They make great vegetable stock once you gather a bag or two.  I will come back to that soon!

While your sweet potatoes roast, pull out your rice and chicken from prep day/day one.  I heated the chicken and about 1 cup of rice.  You may need to add a touch of water to the rice to make sure it hasn’t dried out.

Add a large handful of spinach or mixed greens to your dinner plate (this could also be a great side dish), top with brown rice, chicken, roasted sweet potatoes and about 2 ounces of goat cheese per salad.  Top with home made creamy balsamic vinaigrette and enjoy.

This is a great winter salad, as it has some warm components to it.  It is also great as leftovers or chilled during warmer weather.  Definitely a favorite of mine!

I guess I don’t need a salad bar after all.

Print

Winter Salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 2

Ingredients

• 2 sweet potatoes
• 2 chicken breasts cooked and shredded
• 1 cup brown rice cooked
• 2 handfuls spinach or mixed greens
• 4 ounces goat cheese
• Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.

2. Wash, peel and cube sweet potatoes.  Spray lightly with olive oil.  salt and pepper to taste.  roast for 30 minutes.

3. Assemble salad on a large handful of spinach or mixed greens (dinner portion).

4. Top with 1/2 cup brown rice each, 1 shredded chicken breast, roasted sweet potatoes, goat cheese and top with Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette.