I was at the beach with a friend this week, and she whipped out a delicious salad. I caught a whiff of the dressing and saw she had put roasted veg in her salad. Now, I don’t usually bother with dressings on my salad, and I don’t usually put roasted veg in my salad. But, I was inspired and so decided to experiment a bit when I got home. This is the yummy result of my experiment:
Ingredients:
- 200g of baby spinach (½ a big bag)
- 4 ice-berg lettuce leaves, shredded
- A few slices of purple cabbage (not necessary, but nice for the colour burst)
- 4 small sweet potatoes, diced with skin left on
- 1 butternut, diced with skin left on
- 4 chicken breasts cut into strips
- 1 tin of chickpeas, drained
- A sprinkle of seeds of your choice (I used sesame seeds and linseeds as that is what I had in my cupboard)
- Feta to crumble over
- Olive oil for cooking
- A few slices of avo (optional – nice to use if it is in season)
Method:
- Toss the baby spinach, lettuce and purple cabbage together in a huge bowl/ platter (and add the dressing to the leaves if you want to add a dressing)
- Lightly pan fry the chicken strips in olive oil
- Add the chickpeas and seeds to the pan and toss all together
- Steam the butternut and sweet potato cubes, then place on a baking sheet (with some olive oil) under the grill to brown them
- Add the chicken and chickpea mix to the bowl of leaves, and add the roasted veg also, and toss all together
- Crumble feta over it
Dressing:
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ teaspoon honey
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
(Simply add all ingredients together in a glass jar and shake!)
Extra notes:
- Cooking the butternut with the skin on was revolutionary for me. No horrible butternut peeling to be done! Plus, it was both nutritious and delicious with the skin on!
- This makes a very large salad. It will easily serve 4-6 people. It can be used for 2 main meals for 2 people, and also probably some lunch meals. So, it can be eaten over 2 days. I would therefore recommend that you slice the avo on top freshly each time you serve up a plate, to prevent the avo going brown by the second day.
- Use minimal dressing on the main salad, and rather let each person add more dressing according to their personal taste preferences.
Enjoy!