TROPICAL CHICKEN SALAD, frugal, healthy packed lunch

A simple salad of cooked chicken, pineapple & nuts to perk up a desk lunch...

Desktop temptation: Tropical Chicken Salad 
with piquant no-added-sugar dressing 

This 67 portable salad gives cooked chicken a new lease of life.  Tropical overtones - sweet pineapple and crunchy nuts - banish that 'leftovers, again?!!' feeling. It's a salad that's piquant and interesting, and the many bits of raw veg make it ultra healthy.  

If the elements are packed individually, the Salad avoids the 'sludginess' of flavour and texture that can follow the morning commute.  Use one sealable sandwich bag for each different item.  Put the dressing in a small jar with a tight-fitting lid, lined with a double layer of clingfilm, or in one sealed sandwich bags sealed inside another.  Assemble and dress at the office.

The Salad is low in fat, sugar and salt but high in protein and fibre. Carbs are optional. 

Costs: under £1, depending on what's in the fridge
Serves: 1 but multiplies easily

Ingredients:
   1 cooked, shredded chicken thigh or leg, free of skin
   2-3 generous handfuls bite-size pieces of iceberg lettuce 
   1 stick celery, peeled, sliced thinly at an angle
   1/6 of a red bell pepper, thinly sliced
   couple of inches of cucumber, thinly sliced
   a couple of slices or handful of chunks of fresh pineapple, burnished on a griddle or frying pan, if you like (pineapple in juice, not syrup, will do)
   1/4 avocado, cubed & doused in lemon juice & seasoned with salt & pepper(opt)
   a few almonds

Dressing:
    4 tbsp light veg oil
    1 tbsp lime juice
    1 tsp Dijon mustard 
    1/2 tsp lime zest

    1 tsp pineapple juice
    1 tbsp finely minced pineapple    
    1/2 tsp finely minced mint leaves
    pepper & salt

  
Method:

Salad:
Arrange ingredients on a plate

Dressing:

1. Put first 4 ingred in a jar with tight fitting lid; shake vigorously
2. Add pineapple juice, minced pineapple, mint leaves
3. Season to taste; shake again
4. Pour 1/3 over the chicken and the remainder over the rest of the salad 

Tips:

• where ingredients are not organic, blanch in 9 parts water, 1 part vinegar 20 mins 
• chicken can be replaced with roast pork
• the recipe also works unexpectedly well with tinned tuna; add chunks of tomato which have been sprayed generously with olive oil & lightly salted

For more salads, go to NavBar: Recipes II

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This recipe has been developed by B  Lee/ Bright Sun Enterprises and may not be reproduced without the author's written permission.