Garden Salad with Shredded Chicken

The simplicity of this salad makes it perfect for packing in freshness and nutrition on a weeknight.  I find that standing in the kitchen cutting up raw meat takes me way longer than dumping it into a pot of water, boiling, and shredding once it's cooked.  So this recipe is a great one when you need a minimal time and effort meal while getting in something really healthy at the same time.  And, with tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers in season during the summer, it's also a great dinner to make with veggies from your local farmer's market!  

Garden Salad with Shredded Chicken

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs chicken thighs

16 oz. spring salad mix

10 oz - 1 lb. grape/cherry tomatoes

2 large cucumbers

1 large white onion

salad dressing of choice

DIRECTIONS

Dump raw or frozen chicken into a large stockpot, cover with water, and boil on the stove top until chicken is cooked through (it will pull apart easily with a fork once it's done).  Once your chicken is cooked, remove it from the pot, and on a cutting board, use two forks to pull apart the chicken into shredded pieces.  

While your chicken is cooking, slice up the tomatoes, cucumbers, and onion according to your preference.  I think halved cherry tomatoes, halved cucumber slices, and thinly sliced onions work well.

Build your salad with a bed of spring mix topped with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and chicken.  Drizzle with your favorite dressing (I think anything from Italian to Ranch to Balsamic Vinaigrette would be good choices here, but my husband says a creamy-based dressing is his preference in case that helps you decide :).

SPECIAL NOTES

We use chicken thighs because they are a bit cheaper than chicken breasts.  Since the rest of our diet is fairly low in fat, we don't quibble over it here (we also don't think fat makes you fat, and that our bodies need it to function well, but that's a discussion for another day ;).  In an article I read about a study done by the NYU School of Medicine, it says that they recently discovered that dark meat chicken is actually quite healthy for you, despite having a higher fat content, because it's more nutrient dense than white meat.  In the study they found that it specifically aided in reducing the risk for heart disease due to a nutrient called taurine, and that it may be beneficial for preventing other forms of disease as well.  So if the cheaper price doesn't convince you to cross over to the dark side, maybe knowing that dark meat isn't as unhealthy as we think it is will!