In December, I retreated to Miami for a few days to attend a conference. Trust me: if you live in a place where it’s cold in December, going to Miami for a quick getaway is smart. While enjoying the sunny weather and learning a lot at the conference, I couldn’t help but be inspired by the food while there. Obviously, Miami has a rich culture in food and we definitely ate a lot of it BUT what is most shocking this time around is where the inspo for this quinoa chicken salad came from.
You’d think that returning from Miami would result in food inspiration from all of the cultures that the city represents. For this salad, I was inspired by something I ate while at the conference. That’s right. Not something I discovered while eating at a yummy restaurant but something I noshed on at the conference. Conference foods aren’t ways the best but this conference had delicious foods, snacks and the beverages flowing all day.
The salad I ate at the conference was called a Mexican chicken salad and though that may be accurate, I felt like renaming it a quinoa chicken salad was more descriptive of some of the main ingredients.
Let’s make a quinoa chicken salad!
Something I’ve discovered recently is that I LOVE constructing salads. Call me weird but I find them wildly therapeutic. Salads don’t have to be boring and you can experiment with flavors and add-ons all you want. Just say to no to boring salads, people!
This isn’t a salad that will cause you to break a sweat. I took the easy way out for most of this (because, why not). The only thing you’ll make is the vinaigrette, which I feel you should always make your own vinaigrette because it’s just so easy. To blend all of the flavors in this quinoa chicken salad, I knew I wanted some citrus flavors in it. I looked around my kitchen and noticed I had a few blood oranges [insert light bulb moment].
BLOOD ORANGE VINAIGRETTE.
As much as I love making salads, I think I love making vinaigrettes the same. Please tell me you make your own vinaigrettes. If you don’t, please start. There’s no exact science to making this salad or any salad for that matter. So you’ll find the “receipe” below but there aren’t any exact measurements – except for the yummy vinaigrette.
Let’s say no to boring salads now.
Ingredients
For the salad
- Spinach or arugula (or both)
- Black beans
- Rotisserie chicken
- Pickled onions
- Roasted sweet potatoes
- Cooked quinoa
Blood orange vinaigrette
- 6 tbsp olive oil
- 2-3 tbsp fresh blood orange juice
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- Pinch of garlic powder
Instructions
To make the vinaigrette
- Place all ingredients in a jar with a lid then shake, shake, shake until it has emulsified. Set in the fridge until you're ready.
To make the salad
- Arrange all of the ingredients on a platter and drizzle with the vinaigrette.
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