One of my family's favorite healthy weeknight meals is a simple Chicken Caesar Salad. In the words of my five year old, "It's delicious enough to eat the whole bowl!"
Weeknight healthy dinners don't have to be complicated to be delicious and a favorite! The Chicken Caesar Salad that we enjoy frequently is easy to make, takes little time to cook, and makes a minimal mess. (See the recipe card in the Recipes section for full details.) You can customize the flavor of the chicken, the type of salad, and the toppings and dressing used to fit each individual style.
Time Savers
I like to serve the Chicken Caesar Salad with fresh, crunchy, buttery croutons, bite-sized chicken, and fresh parmesan. Of course there are a lot of easy corners to cut to make this a 20-minute dish. You can buy salad mix with the dressing and toppings already included. Chicken also comes pre-chopped at Safeway and other grocery stores so that you don't have to spend time cutting it up yourself. The other alternative is to use whole chicken breast or chicken precut into strips, (like for fajitas).
Customizing
There are several ways to customize the salad and chicken to individual or family preferences.
Many different types of seasonings can be added to the chicken for desired flavors. Some examples of flavors would include:
lemon and pepper
taco seasoning
garlic and thyme
Italian seasoning
basic salt and pepper
To cook the chicken I typically use olive oil. Other options would include vegetable or other oils, and of course butter.
Salads
There are several salad variations (along with any you can think of!), that would make this a different style of meal every time! Some different types of salads you could make with this include:
Caesar
Italian
Harvest
BBQ
Asian
Cobb
Garden
Protein
Besides the salad and seasonings, you can also customize the protein to fit whatever you have handy! Some protein ideas include:
Chicken
Steak
Ground Beef
Pork (shredded would be delicious!)
Fish- so many options!
The choices of customization are yours- just let me know how it turned out! I hope you enjoy the Chicken Caesar Salad recipe!
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