Southwestern Grilled Chicken Salad

Grilled Chicken Salad with cherry tomatoes, corn, and romaine lettuce

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This is a fantastic recipe for southwestern grilled chicken salad which features romaine lettuce, fresh corn, cilantro and lime soaked cherry tomatoes. A southwestern grilled chicken salad is one of

those meals that aren’t made at home enough. People are always ordering it when they go out to restaurants as a go to healthy option, but why don’t more people make it at home? It’s such a simple recipe and when using really fresh ingredients it can far exceed what a restaurant will put in front of you for $18 a pop.

How do you prepare grilled chicken for a salad?

Take a 5 or 6 ounce piece of boneless skinless chicken breast and place the pam of your hand over the breast. Then with a sharp knife slice thru the breast. This will give you nice thin pieces of chicken that will cook up very fast and evenly on the grill. By slicing the breast, it also allows you to give the breast a nice char on the outside which is great for flavor while also keeping the center of the breast moist.

Time to season the chicken breast southwestern style. Season both sides of the breast with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and carne asada seasoning. Carne Asada seasoning is usually a mixture of chile peppers, brown sugar, coriander, onion powder and garlic powder.

Seasoned chicken breast

Time to put the breasts on the grill. Heat the grill up to 400 degrees F. Again, the chicken breasts are thinned sliced so they won’t take long to grill. Once the grill hits 400 degrees F put the chicken over direct heat. Let cook for 6 minutes. After the breasts have been on the grill a total of 6 minutes you should flip them over. Continues to cook a few more minutes until they hit an internal temp of 165 degrees F.

Grilled Chicken Breasts

I always like to take advantage of seasonal vegetables. For this recipe, I took a pint of fresh cherry tomatoes and sliced them in half. I then added a fresh clove of sliced garlic which I bought at a farm stand. You could literally see the juices coming out of the garlic when slicing it. I also added a handful of chopped cilantro, the juice of a lime and two table spoons of oil.

I then let the tomatoes marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Between the juice of the tomatoes and lime mixing with the oil, no extra dressing is needed for this recipe.

Southwestern salads often include either beans or cheese. To keep the carbs and calories to a minimum in this recipe I excluded them. The cilantro lime tomatoes and seasoned chicken are the focus of the dish, but by all means…..cheese up the salad if you’d like.

Once the chicken is done grilling chop into bite size pieces and let cool for a few minutes. Chop a head of romaine lettuce and cut an ear of corn. Split the ingredients into two plates. Then top each plate with the tomato cilantro mixture. Finish the salad with the chopped southwestern chicken.

Enjoy! I think you’ll love this recipe for southwestern grilled chicken salad!