BBQ Chicken Salad is one of my favorite salads, I just love the medley of fresh vegetables and herbs – romaine lettuce, jicama, red onion, tomatoes, corn, black beans, basil, cilantro – combined with a really yummy sour cream and salsa dressing that’s on the lighter side than the traditional ranch dressing that’s served with a BBQ chicken salad.
Topped off with chicken smothered in my Molasses BBQ sauce, it is so delicious and really easy to make!
To start, we are going to crystal boil our chicken breasts, which is a really easy way to cook chicken. Bring a pot of water to a boil, drop in the chicken breasts, cover and turn off the heat and let them sit there for 30-40 minutes. Voila! They’re cooking and ready to go.
While the chicken is cooking, you can make the sour cream and salsa dressing and then let’s go ahead and start prepping our vegetables.
To Chiffonade your basil, lay all the leaves flat on top of each other and roll up. with your knife, slice through the rolls leaves from top to bottom. This makes cutting your basil easy and accurate.
Jicama is a root vegetable that’s packed with nutrients and anti-oxidants. I love Jicama because I like it’s texture in different dishes and it tends to soak up and compliment the flavors of the dressing in the BBQ salad.
Cilantro is one of my favorite herbs, I love it’s flavor and in this dish in particular it just pops! Instead of pulling off leaf by leaf, hold the washed bunch by the stems and “shave” off the leaves with your knife starting at where the leaves begin and cutting upward. Its ok to have some stems, they are tasty too.
BBQ Sauce – Homemade or store bought?
It’s completely up to you! You can use your favorite store bought BBQ sauce, and there are so many great BBQ sauces out there that you really can’t go wrong.
I like to use my homemade BBQ Sauce in this recipe. I make the BBQ sauce in large batches and pop some in the freezer, that way whenever I run low I have another on deck and ready to go. I’m admittedly biases, but I really haven’t found another store bought BBQ sauce that I like more than my Molasses BBQ Sauce so that’s what I’ve used in this recipe.
BBQ Chicken Salad
- Total Time: 30-40
- Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients
-
3 chicken breasts, boneless / skinless
-
1/4 cup sour cream
-
1/4 cup salsa
-
5 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
-
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped (stems removed)
-
1/3 cup basil, chiffonade
-
2/3 cup red onion, small dice
-
1 canned corn or 1 1/2 cups fresh corn
-
3/4 cup jicima, peeled and diced into 1/4 inch squares
-
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
-
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
-
1/3 cup diced tomato
-
1 lime
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of boiling water to a boil. Place chicken breast in water. Cover and turn off heat. Allow chicken breast to cook for 35-40 minutes.
- In a mixing bowl, mix together sour cream and salsa to make your dressing.
- Remove chicken from water and dice up. Mix with BBQ sauce in a medium size bowl and keep in fridge.
- In a large bowl toss together lettuce, cilantro, basil, red onion, corn, jicima, cheese and black beans. Toss with dressing.
- Plate salad and then top with chicken and squeeze 1 lime over the whole salad.
Notes
Perfect for a picnic or a delicious lunch at work.
In the bottom of a portable container (I like to use individual Chinese takeout boxes and divide up the salad) layer beans, jicima, corn, onion, tomato and cheese. Top with lettuce and herbs.
If you’re going to prepare ahead of time for a picnic or to take to work, don’t dress the salad, instead place the dressing, limes and chicken in separate small plastic containers or baggies. Keep salad dressing on the side in a cooler until you are ready to use. When you are ready to eat, dress salad and toss, finish with bbq chicken.
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 30-40
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: bbq chicken salad, bbq salad