Sweet Chili Mustard Grilled Chopped Chicken Salad

A refreshing chopped chicken salad recipe using grilled chicken breasts and lots of your favorite healthy vegetables. The dressing for this Sweet Chili Mustard Chopped Chicken Salad is packed with some unique ingredients that make for a bold and fresh topping for this delicious and healthy main course salad.

Even though we’ve had Spring weather for about the past two weeks, much of the time the wind has been howling, gusting, tossing patio furniture about the yard and in general just being pesky enough that grilling hasn’t seemed a fun option.

A window of opportunity this past weekend found me cleaning out the drip pan and scraping those grates clear and sizzling up a chicken breast for this great little salad.

Ingredients For This Chopped Chicken Salad

Mixed baby greens, diced tomatoes, toasted slivered almonds, diced cucumber and grilled chicken that’s been seasoned with marjoram and cut into bite sized pieces sounds like a predictable and basic chicken salad recipe. So what’s there to talk about?  It’s about the dressing. Pineapple juice, Maggi bottled sweet chili sauce and Dijon mustard come together to turn this into a bold and exciting chopped salad recipe. So flavorful,

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Seasoning the chicken with marjoram before cooking brings a unique flavor profile to this dish. So what does marjoram taste like? Marjoram is a member of the mint and oregano family and is known for its aroma and delicate flavor. Marjoram’s flavor is similar to oregano; however a bit more complicated. It’s often described as sweeter and more delicate. In addition Marjoram lacks oregano’s spicy undertones. I try and use it as often as I can, as it seems this spice gets forgotten amongst it’s more popular cousins.

 Riffs On Sweet Chili Mustard Chopped Chicken Salad

1. Substitute grilled shrimp for the chicken. The marjoram would be a lovely seasoning for shrimp
2. Forget the salad, use this glaze type dressing as a sauce for grilled chicken wings
3. Mix it up. You’re not limited to cucumbers and tomatoes. Add thawed green peas, celery, roasted red bell peppers, or fresh yellow bell peppers. It’s your salad. Use your favorite ingredients. Just make sure to keep it colorful.
4. Substitute the chicken for grilled flank steak that’s been simply seasoned garlic salt. Then replace the almonds with a sprinkle of canned onion rings. You know the ones … like you buy for that green bean casserole at Thanksgiving.
5. Need to make this one vegetarian?  Simply replace the grilled chicken with grilled portabello mushrooms. Don’t forget that marjoram.
6. Want to turn this into a super easy weeknight chicken salad dinner? Use a rotisserie chicken. Just pull the meat off the bones, chop, and toss with salt and pepper and a little marjoram before arranging the meat on salad.

More Chicken Salad Recipes

• Grilled Chicken Wilted Salad
• Chinese Chicken Salad
• Strawberry Chicken Salad with Creamy Poppyseed Dressing

5 from 4 votes

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Sweet Chili-Mustard Grilled Chopped Chicken Salad

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

15 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

A refreshing chicken salad recipe using grilled chicken breasts and lots of your favorite healthy vegetables. The dressing for this Sweet Chili Mustard Chopped Chicken Salad is packed with some unique ingredients that make for a bold and fresh topping for this delicious and healthy main course salad.

Course: Main Course Chicken

Cuisine: American

Servings: 4

Author: Cooking On The Ranch

Ingredients

• Dressing:
• 3/4 Cup pineapple juice
• 2 Tablespoon bottled sweet chili sauce
• 2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
• 1/2 Cup slivered almonds toasted
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh marjoram
• salt and pepper
• 4 Cups mixed baby greens
• 2 tomatoes diced
• 1 cucumber diced

Instructions

1. To make the dressing: In a medium saucepan, whisk together the pineapple juice, chili sauce, vinegar and soy sauce. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until 1/2 cup remains, 15 – 20 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in mustard and sesame oil and allow to cool to room temperature.

2. In a medium skillet over medium heat, cook the almonds until lightly toasted, stirring or shaking the pan occasionally.

3. Brush chicken breasts with oil, season with marjoram and salt and pepper. Grill over medium heat until meat is firm to the touch and no longer pink. Approximately 10 minutes. Tent until you can handle and then cut into bite-sized pieces.
4. In a large bowl, combine the greens, chicken, almonds and tomatoes. Drizzle the dressing over the top (you may not need all of it) and toss to evenly coat. Serve immediately.

And speaking of wind, this is a photo of smoke from the Lower North Fork Fire, taken from our back deck. It’s burning about 20 miles west of Highlands Ranch. Late Monday afternoon, and with wind gusts up to 90 miles an hour, the fire quickly grew to around 3,000 acres. And with the late day sun hovering over western horizon, and black smoke darkening the sky, it was an ominous and tragic sight.

Sweet Chili-Mustard Chopped Chicken Salad …It’s What’s for Dinner