Citrusy Chicken Salad

Next time you’re about to stick a couple of extra chicken fillets in the freezer—don’t. Thawing and cooking chicken takes time. It’s far more useful to have a few fillets already cooked for easy weekday meals like this mouthwatering salad.

I used to freeze leftover meat all the time. You probably know the feeling: you open the fridge, look inside, close it again, and end up with a bowl of cereal—because all you saw were ingredients and hours of work. It’s even worse when everything is frozen.

Instead, when you’re already cooking, take those extra chicken fillets, pat them dry with kitchen paper, season with salt, pepper, lemon peel, and thyme, and pan-fry on both sides (cook the second side with a lid on) until a meat thermometer says it’s safe to eat. In time, you’ll learn less scientific methods to assess when the meat is ready.

Today, when I checked the fridge, I spotted a lonely piece of chicken. I had also noticed that nobody wanted the mandarins left over from Christmas. And I had promised myself to eat an avocado every day before they start rotting. Luckily, I also had plenty of salad herbs on hand.

With this salad, there are no strict rules—just certain flavour and colour combinations that work well together, like citrus, red onion, and avocado. You don’t want to ruin it with tomatoes, but don’t worry if you don’t have the exact amounts—it’ll still work.

1 serving

Ingredients

1 pre-cooked chicken fillet

handful baby spinach

handful rocket

handful chopped Chinese cabbage

1 small red onion

1 small thinly sliced carrot (optional)

2 mandarins

1 avocado

cilantro

Dressing

olive oil

lemon juice

sweet chilly sauce

pepper

salt

Method

Peel the onion, cut it lengthwise twice, then slice thinly. The carrots are only relevant if you happen to have some juliennes left over from the soup a day before. Peel the mandarins and slice them into circles—because that’s more fun than segments. Cut the avocado into cubes.

Arrange the leafy greens as the base of the salad. Add the remaining ingredients.

For the dressing, mix 3 parts olive oil with 1 part lemon juice (plus any mandarin juice from the cutting board). Stir in a generous splash of sweet chilli sauce and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle over the salad.

Slice the chicken fillet and warm it briefly in the microwave. Top the salad with the chicken and dig in.

Just a trick you might like for keeping your salad greens fresh for longer. Press the excess air out of the zip lock bag before closing it.