In the summer we eat mostly light, cool food, which translates into lots of salad. As I was looking through my cookbook this afternoon for ideas, I came across my family’s (parents’ and sisters’) favorite salad recipe, which I, sadly, haven’t tasted in a couple years. It’s so incredibly delicious, we call it “The Salad.”
I’m sharing it here so that you, too, can enjoy its tangy sweetness and amazing food combos, some of which I admit I was rather incredulous about until I tasted them. If the ingredients look a little weird, I urge you to take a chance anyway. Even the more recent male additions to our family, mostly meat-and-potatoes men, have ended up loving it.
Chicken Spinach Salad
5 cups cubed, cooked chicken (about 3 whole breasts)
2 cups green grapes, halved
1 cup snow peas
2 cups packed, torn spinach
2-1/2 cups celery
7 oz. corkscrew pasta, cooked and drained
2 jars (6 oz.) marinated artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
1/2 large cucumber, sliced
3 green onions with tops, diced
DRESSING:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried, minced onion
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. minced fresh or dried parsley
In a large bowl, toss the chicken, grapes, peas, spinach, celery, pasta, artichoke hearts, cucumber and green onions. Cover and refrigerate. Combine all dressing ingredients in a jar or small bowl; mix well and refrigerate. Just before serving, pour dressing over salad and toss. If desired, serve on a spinach leaf and garnish with oranges.
NOTES:
We never garnish the salad with oranges, so I can’t testify as to whether or not that’s any good.
We double everything in the dressing recipe, with the exception of the vegetable oil. After countless test tastings, we all decided that the extra dressing makes the salad even more mouth-watering.
This recipe serves 8-10, but you just may find your smaller-sized family fighting over the last bites remaining in the bowl. Er, maybe that’s just us.
My kids even like this salad, which says a lot about it!
It’s such a fascinating mix of ingredients that it must be good! Sounds delicious—I’m on my way to the grocery store this morning to buy artichoke hearts and snow peas!
I love how family’s develop their own language, especially when it comes to food. My wife’s family refers to a favorite dish as “Chicken and noodles” although it’s much more complicated than that. And what they call an enchilada, well, this New Mexican boy eats with his mouth shut.
Look forward to reading more of your posts, throughout May and beyond…
[...] (Click here for Ludwig’s original recipe and post) [...]
Sarah,
You’re salad recipe was the first victim of my new weekly blog series entitled “How to Ignore a Recipe.” Thank you, it was delicious! Here’s the link:
http://rondoylewrites.com/2009/05/how-to-ignore-a-recipe-chicken-spinach-salad/
Hey, I thought you were going to buy artichoke hearts and snow peas?? =)
Seriously though, I love the way you completely did away with my recipe. It was fun to read and hard to imagine. It sounds like it turned out well though. Maybe you need to start a cookbook!