Mandarin Chicken Salad

When the weather takes a turn for the unbearably, beastly, suffocatingly hot here in Florida (right around the end of June) I start making a lot of salads, soups, stews, and sandwiches--anything to give the oven a break and not heat up the house. You think I left out grilling, right? Because this is the season when America collectively lights up their grills and throws on their hot dogs, ribs, hamburgers, and marinated chicken. Not here. The very last thing you want to do outside when it is 93 with a 104 heat index is stand over an open flame. Okay, we are going to have some BBQ this week, but that's just smoking and poor Bubba can close the lid and walk away for a while.



This recipe for mandarin chicken salad is super quick, easy, and extremely tasty. Best of all, it is also super filling. We didn't even want dessert afterward. Shocking, I know.

You will need:

lettuce (you choice of variety, I use a mix of iceberg and Romaine)
sweet and sour sauce/marinade
1 can mandarin oranges
slivered almonds
chow mein noodles
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts



I cleaned and cut up the chicken breasts into three pieces each (I used 6 breasts) and put them all in a Ziploc bag. I added 1/2 - 3/4 of the bottle of sweet and sour sauce. Chuck the bag into the fridge and leave it alone for at least 3 hours, overnight is best. **Store the leftover bottle of sauce in the fridge if you are leaving the chicken overnight**

I use a sweet and sour sauce that is much thinner than a traditional dipping sauce. It is more of a marinade than a sauce, really. I would not try using that ultra thick dipping sauce...I don't think it would coat the chicken properly and would probably burn when cooking owing to the high sugar content. My favorite marinade for this recipe is:



Your choice on how to prepare the marinated chicken. I sprayed a frying pan with cooking spray and cooked the chicken on medium high heat for 4 minutes on each side. But you could definitely grill them or even bake them (350 degrees for 20-25 minutes). It really won't make too much of a difference, unless you love that grilled flavor. :)



After the chicken is cooked, grilled, baked it is just a matter of putting together the ingredients on a bed of lettuce. I add about a handful of chow mein noodles per plate, about a tablespoon of almonds, a handful of oranges, and at least 3 pieces of chicken (equaling one chicken breast). For the dressing, I thin out some of the sauce with a bit of white vinegar. The bite of the vinegar cuts the mild sweetness of the sauce perfectly. For all four of us I used 1/4 cup of sauce and 1 tsp of vinegar total. You need very little dressing on this salad, just a drizzle.





How crazy tasty are those chow mein noodles. I could eat them like potato chips...and did. The whole family loves, loves, loves this salad. Make a little extra chicken so you will have leftovers. This chicken is amazing when eaten right out of the fridge, cold with a little bit of salt. Even better when standing in the kitchen eating it with your fingers. Enjoy!

Pecan Chicken

Pecan chicken is a classic Southern dish traditionally made with bone-in, skin-on chicken. Like fried chicken, but with a pecan (pronounced pee-can in the South) crust. This recipe is a healthier version I found in one of my favorite cookbooks and then made even healthier.



You will need:

2 pie plates
9x13 baking dish
3T butter (Smart Balance)
3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 cup ground pecans
1 T paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts



Clean your chicken and cut the breasts into 3 pieces each, about the size of chicken tenders. You can leave them whole, but the smaller pieces have more coating, so more flavor, and they cook faster. Kids love anything that resembles a chicken tender.


Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. I covered my glass baking dish with foil for easy clean-up. Cut up the 3T of butter and put them in your baking dish, then place the dish into the oven while it preheats.




Mix the pecans, flour, paprika, salt, and pepper in one of the pie plates.



In the second pie plate, whisk together the buttermilk and egg. Line up your dishes starting with the buttermilk mixture, then flour, then melted butter in the baking dish.



Dredge each piece on chicken in the buttermilk mixture, coating it thoroughly.



Then evenly coat each buttermilk covered piece in the pecan mixture.



Place each piece in the dish with melted butter, then flip over so that it is buttered on each side.



Mmmmm. Buttermilk, pecans...two of my favorite words. I'm getting hungry!

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. The coating will brown up nicely.



This chicken is amazing hot from the oven. I served it with some saffron rice and homemade whole wheat rolls (recipe to come). But, my favorite way to eat this chicken is cold from the fridge, cut up on a salad. Hot or cold it's super delicious and almost guilt-free. Enjoy!

Orange Chicken?

I was looking online for a recipe for orange chicken and couldn't find one that I liked or that I had all the ingredients for until I stumbled on this one. But I don't think you can call this orange chicken. It's good, really good, especially on a salad, but orange chicken it is not. :) It's very simple, though, and I bet you have all of the ingredients on hand.



1 cup orange juice
1 T soy sauce (I used reduced-sodium)
1 envelope Lipton onion soup mix
1/2 tsp garlic powder
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts



I cleaned the chicken, cut it into strips, and put them into a plastic bag. (I use kitchen shears to cut up chicken and like the smaller pieces because they cook more evenly.) I mixed together the oj, soy sauce, Lipton, garlic powder and poured the mixture on top of the chicken. I let it marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours, but you could leave it alone all night or for just 30 minutes. I lined a 9x13 inch glass dish with foil and poured the chicken and marinade into it.



Bake at 375, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened a bit and the chicken is cooked through. I served it over brown rice for hubby and the girls, but I ate mine on a salad.



In my salad I had iceberg and romaine lettuce, carrots, the chopped up chicken with a bit of the sauce, pumpkin seeds, and a honey dijon vinaigrette.