Strawberry Chicken Salad with creamy poppyseed dressing. Make the most out of fresh strawberry season with this easy main course salad. Poppyseed dressing, fried chicken breast and strawberries are an absolutely wonderful main-course salad combination.
What to Cook For Dinner Tonight – Easy!
Have I ever told you that I live five minutes from where I work? OK, during a snow storm, it’s probably seven. And if I hit the stop light at Highlands Ranch Parkway, that will add an extra minute to the calculations. How far do you commute to work?
I left work at 5:25, arriving home at 5:30. (Yay for the green light at Highlands Ranch Parkway.)
Cooking the chicken breasts while I assembled the rest of the ingredients, dinner was on the table at 6:15. Actually it would have been on the table at 6:00 but a glass of wine with feet propped up on the coffee table delayed the process. Priorities. My point? Even with an easy commute, recipes like this quick Strawberry Chicken Salad are always welcome.
In the last 24 hours Colorado has seen rain, hail, tornadoes, sleet balls, lightening, thunder, street flooding, it’s currently snowing like the dickens and I think I just spotted a swarm of locust fly through. And as one of my friends on Facebook said “cue volcano”.
What does all of this mean? It’s Springtime in the Rockies and its salad season.
Fresh Strawberry Season
Speaking of floods, strawberries are everywhere right now. And they’re big, plump and delicious.
You can’t walk into any market in Denver without a big display of baskets of perfect strawberries pleading to be adopted. And at good prices.
But from where did this glut of strawberries come?? It seems that the strawberry harvest in Florida was delayed due to lousy weather, and now their harvest is coinciding with the California harvest resulting in 80 million pounds of strawberries distributed in the U.S. all at once. Results? Oh-so sweet prices.
A recent trip to Costco found a large flat of strawberries in my cart, in my car, and now in my refrigerator. Let’s make a salad! And let’s make that salad with one of my favorite dressings, creamy poppyseed dressing.
These strawberries are beautiful and perfect, they taste really good. But if you can find local fresh strawberries, grab as many as you can. I feel “strawberry ruined” after traveling to Oregon and feasting on fresh Oregon Strawberries. You haven’t lived until you’ve had the real thing. No comparison. Can’t even begin to describe the difference. A moment of silence please.
I look forward to Colorado Grown strawberries to hit out markets soon. If you can find them.
Creamy Poppyseed Dressing Recipe
Hands down, poppyseed dressing is my favorite salad dressing of all time. Creamy with mayo and sour cream, this recipe gets a kick of even more deliciousness by adding heavy cream. With cider vinegar to brighten and add a hint of tartness, it’s absolutely perfect in my books.
Oh sure, there are some brands you can buy at the store and they’re good. Panera Poppyseed Dressing is pretty darn god. But this recipe comes together in less than 5 minutes and the flavor and quality are superior to bottled. By far.
I hope you take the time to make homemade without the preservatives and crazy ingredients that you find in bottled.
Strawberry Chicken Salad – Make it With Almonds
Chicken breasts that are dusted with flour and then sauteed produce such a tender, juicy and flavorful end result. The flour seals in all the goodness and texture that we look for in chicken breast. Once the chicken is cooked and juices run clear, remove to a plate with a paper towel and tent with foil. This will help to seal in those flavorful juices even more.
Slice the chicken before building the salad for easy to manage meal. I’ve added sliced almonds to my Strawberry and Chicken Salad. A little crunch is always a good thing.
Chopped mango adds a splash of yellow orange color. A colorful main course fried chicken salad that seems light and fresh in a hearty sort of way.
Of course you can saute chicken breasts without that coating of flour. It will save a bit on calories – and gluten. But a little compromise on the flavor scale. Unless you are eating gluten free, I simply wouldn’t skip the flour.
Recipe for Strawberry Chicken Salad with Creamy Poppyseed Dressing
I hope you give this Strawberry Chicken Salad recipe a try. And if you do, please come back and give the recipe a star rating. And leave a comment about your experience with the recipe.
And if you have a favorite Fried Chicken Salad Recipe let me know, I’d love to give it a try.
More Recipes Using Fresh Strawberries
- Strawberry Tart Recipe with Lemon Cream Cheese Filling
- The Only Strawberry Spinach Salad Recipe You’ll Ever Need
- Colorado Creme with Fresh Strawberries
and this recipe for Fresh Strawberry Pound Cake from Grandbaby Cakes. Yum!
And if you’re salad fans like us, don’t miss my post on 9 Secrets To A Remarkable Tossed Salad. A step by step guide on how to make the best tossed salad ever.
Strawberry Chicken Salad with Creamy Poppyseed Dressing
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breast halves Boneless, skinless, slightly pounded to even out thickness, dusted with flour and sautéed until golden and cooked through.
- 1/4 cup flour
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3 Tablespoons oil vegetable or olive
- 2 fist fulls salad greens Romaine, spring greens, arugula, etc.
- 1 cup Strawberries washed, tops cut off and halved
- 1/2 small sweet onion thin sliced and halved
- 1/2 cup mango cubed
- 1/4 cup sliced almonds
- For the dressing
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 2 Tablespoons sugar or honey
- 1 Tablespoon Sour cream
- 1 Tablespoon heavy cream
- 2 1/2 teaspoons Cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
Instructions
- Place flour on a plate and then dredge chicken breast to lightly coat with the flour. Salt and pepper the chicken.
- Heat a fry pa over medium high heat, add oil and when oil is hot, add chicken and sauté over medium heat until golden on each side and cooked through. About 6 minutes per side. Remove to a plate and tent with foil 5 minutes.
- Combine dressing ingredients in a jar and shake until blended.
- Slice the chicken breasts. Build your salad with the greens, the warm chicken, arrange strawberries and mango over the top, sprinkle with sliced almonds and drizzle with the dressing.
Nutrition
Strawberry Chicken Salad … It’s What’s for Dinner.
Ahhhh you should have made a strawberry vinaigrette to go on top!
Awesome salad, the chicken looks perfectly cooked. Yum!
What a beautiful salad both aesthetically pleasing and I’m sure my tummy would be very pleased! By the way, I like the name it’s really cute to go with a really cute looking salad.
Mmmmmm… I agree on the fresh strawberries. Nothing like getting them fresh from the farmer.
A woman after my own heart; I love salads with fruit lately much more than ‘regular’ salads. Getting good strawberries is much easier than getting good tomatoes and I think that’s what has driven me in that direction.
I’m a balsamic vinegar freak; it would be another good quick dressing mixed with some olive oil and a squeeze of lemon or orange juice. Now I’m hungry!
Floods of strawberries are the only kinds of floods that I like! This salad looks delicious. I love the sound of that dressing.
This is just the type of salad I love! Filled with a wide array of fresh ingredients and sweet and savory flavors! Delicious!
Looks and sounds refreshing and tasty!
Bookmarking!
Gorgeous salad! Love the combination of the chicken and strawberries–looks so colorful and delicious. Want to send it to Souper Sundays? 😉
Colorful and nutritious. Love it!
Mother nature has lost her mind, that’s all I’m sayin’. And the salad looks amazing!!
Beautiful! That is a beautiful salad and thanks for sharing how you use toasted sesame oil. (got some and can’t figure out what to do with it)
I hear you about being ruined on strawberries. Last year we had a great crop – so sweet and flavorful that I had a hard time getting a full colander to the house. Amazing how good they are when they’re picked ripe.
And I’m lmao at the weather down there. I’m still trying to get used to springtime in the mountains and find that it’s so unpredictable, I just have to roll with it. Glad we don’t have tornadoes in the mix – I’ don’t miss those at all.
I feel healthy just looking at this – mmmmmmmm
No eyes are rolled here! Only a stomach rumbling!
It is becoming salad season and I’m very impressed with your creation and I know Bev will love it. The strawberry farm up the road is estimating berries by the 28th and they are so good