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

Chicken Parm Bites

The theme for this round of the recipe swap is Game Day, so any food that would be good to eat while watching the game on the weekend. I’m not a big sports spectator, but I think getting together with people to share food is always a good idea! I got this recipe for Chicken Parm Bites from Coleen at Does Not Cook Well with Others . I was really excited to make this because who doesn’t like meatballs? And chicken parmesan is always a winner.

These meatballs are a little tricky to put together, but I have made many cookie recipes where you wrap the dough around some sort of filling. Meat is a little harder to work with than cookie dough! I found that this worked best if you dried the mini mozzarella balls, otherwise I just couldn’t get the meat to stick together. I only made 14 meatballs, as I didn’t want to risk not completely sealing in the mozzarella.

My meatballs took a little longer to cook, maybe because they were a little bit bigger. They are fairly light in color, so it’s a bit hard to tell when they are done. With the cheese in the center, they remain very moist and I think they would be ok even if you baked them too long. We had these for dinner and enjoyed them so much! (They kind of look like they are covered with coconut; don’t know what to say about that.) Thanks Coleen and thanks to Sarah at A Taste of Home Cooking who organizes the recipe swaps. They are a lot of fun and I always get to try something different.

Chicken Parm Bites

1 tablespoon oil

½ cup chopped shallots or onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound ground chicken

1 ¼ cups panko bread crumbs, divided

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon salt

14-16 fresh mini mozzarella balls

Marinara sauce, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with nonstick spray.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the shallots until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a few minutes.

Place the ground chicken, ¼ cup of the panko, oregano, basil, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the shallots and garlic. Mix together until evenly combined.

Divide the meat into about 16 equal-sized pieces. Take one mini mozzarella ball and shape one piece of the meat around it, sealing the mozzarella in completely. Repeat with the remaining meat and mozzarella balls.

Roll the meatballs in the remaining panko and place on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake the meatballs for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Serve the meatballs (on toothpicks if you’d like) alongside the warmed marinara sauce.

Recipe from Does Not Cook Well with Others