Grilled Chinese Chicken Salad with Sesame Dressing

This round of the recipe swap is Summer Salads and I got this great Chinese Chicken Salad from MaryEllen over at MaryEllen’s Cooking Creations. I’ve made a couple of recipes from her blog and they always turn out well. Thanks to Sarah at A Taste of Home Cooking for arranging these swaps. I’ve tried a lot of recipes that I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. And it gives my blog readers a chance to see something other than baked treats here on my blog. 

I love Chinese Chicken Salad, so I was really happy that I got this recipe. It’s a great recipe because so much of the prep is done in advance and then all you have to do at dinner time is grill the chicken and assemble the salad. I guess that I make enough Asian food that I even had all the ingredients on hand. I didn’t have Sriracha hot sauce, but I had some other hot sauce that I used. I don’t really like heat all that much any way so I just included a tiny bit of that. 

My only struggle with this recipe was getting the chicken cooked all the way through. The chicken breasts I used were huge, so they took a long time to cook. I really, really liked this salad, and loved that it was so easy to put together. My husband, who is not much of a salad fan at all, even enjoyed it (but he didn’t eat much of his lettuce). He liked the pasta that was mixed in with the salad and he liked the dressing. I consider that a big win!

Grilled Chinese Chicken Salad with Sesame Dressing

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

3 tablespoon soy sauce

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

½-1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

¼ teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoon soy sauce

Salt and pepper

4 cups chopped romaine lettuce

2 green onions, chopped

1 carrot, julienned

1/2 cup bean sprouts

1 cup cooked pasta noodles, cooled - I used Ramen noodles

   

The night or morning before serving, marinate the chicken. In a large ziplock bag, place the two chicken breasts. In a bowl whisk together the olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, hoisin sauce, and hot sauce. Pour into the bag and seal. Refrigerate for 4-24 hours.

Make the dressing: in a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until the salad is ready to serve.

In a large bowl, combine the Romaine, carrots, green onions, bean sprouts, and pasta. Add the dressing and toss to combine.

Heat the grill to 400 degrees (I used medium high) and grill the chicken until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. Start with about 5 minutes per side, but it may take longer depending on the size of your chicken breasts. Slice the chicken breasts and serve on top of the salad.

Recipe from MaryEllen’s Cooking Creations

Grilled Romaine with Bacon-Balsamic Vinaigrette

For this round of the recipe swap, the theme is Grilling/Cook Out. You can imagine that this is fairly far outside my comfort zone! I wanted to participate and try something new. I don’t really eat meat on the bone, so I specified that with Sarah from A Taste of Home Cooking who organizes the recipe swaps. I’m usually not demanding at all: I’m not really very picky. I got this recipe from Mary Ellen’s Cooking Creations  for a grilled romaine salad and I was really excited to try it. 

I’ve had a grilled salad one other time, at Western/steakhouse restaurant. I liked it, but my lettuce was a little too grilled. I figured I could control that, plus it had a wonderful bacon/balsamic dressing that I knew I would like. I sometimes like bleu cheese and sometimes I don’t, so for this recipe I substituted goat’s cheese in its place. 

While we do own a grill, I made this inside on the grill pan. I didn’t have good luck cooking the bacon and onion; my onions were burnt to a crisp before the bacon was done. I started again and cooked the bacon partially and then added the onions so they wouldn’t get burnt. The grill pan worked great, but I ended up standing over a hot stove for longer than planned. I wasn’t sure how we would eat this, so I ended up chopping up the lettuce and mixing everything together. I did like the flavors of this, but the grilled flavor wasn’t very strong. Thanks for the recipe Mary Ellen! It was good to try something new.

Grilled Romaine with Bacon-Balsamic Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 slices bacon, chopped

2 tablespoon chopped onion

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

2 heads romaine lettuce, cut in 1/2 lengthwise

2 tablespoon crumbled goat’s cheese

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the grill or a grill pan to high heat.

First, make the dressing: heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet until hot. Add the bacon and cook for about 3 minutes. Add the onions to the pan and cook until the bacon is crispy and the onion is soft. Add the balsamic vinegar and the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan. Stir and then remove from the heat.

Brush the romaine with a little olive oil and place on the grill, cut side down.  Quickly sear; this will take about three minutes.

Pour the dressing over the romaine and top with the goat’s cheese. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.  

 

Recipe from Mary Ellen’s Cooking Creations