Easter is around the corner. Just this weekend, it felt as if spring had officially begun. I can usually tell when spring has begun because my nose tends to flare up. Just today, I was overcome with an urge to sneeze multiple times throughout the day. I’m not at the point where I sneeze a couple times a day yet, but once spring is in full swing, my daily sneezing will begin again. The start of spring means a shift from eating warm, comforting, and heavy foods to eating more light, colorful, and healthy meals. My favorite meals to prepare during warmer months usually require less cooking. I made a salad over the weekend inspired by the colors of spring and Easter. In preparation for Easter Sunday only a couple of weeks away, I began planning my brunch menu. This year, Kevin and I celebrated Easter early with an Easter brunch. When I think of Easter, I think of beautiful colors in all of my foods. For Saturday’s brunch menu, I prepared colorful dishes including a garden Cobb salad, strawberry and orange scones, asparagus, ham, and mushroom frittata, and fresh watermelon juice. This was definitely a lot of food for two people, but I was already planning to pack some for lunch throughout the week. The star of the menu was my garden Cobb salad. I named it a garden Cobb salad because it featured mainly vegetables in different shades of the rainbow. I topped my salad with bright tomatoes, crunchy carrots, savory chicken, creamy avocado, crispy bacon, and sweet red onion. The only real cooking involved is cooking the chicken and bacon. I cooked the bacon first and then used the rendered bacon fat to cook the chicken. This way, the chicken absorbed all of the smokiness and saltiness from the bacon. The rest of the ingredients just require prepping and arranging. Overall, the entire salad didn’t take very long to prepare and serve. I love serving salads any time of the day. Salads are easy to pull together and are always a crowd pleaser. For the dressing, I made a simple red wine vinaigrette. Right before serving the salad, I tossed the mixed greens in some vinaigrette. The salad was very filling and held us both over throughout most of the day. We weren’t even hungry when we drove to the theater in the afternoon to finally watch Captain Marvel. We were even able to run a couple errands after the movie without getting hungry. The best part about the salad was how filling and light it was. It made for a great start to our Saturday morning.
Garden Cobb Salad:
· 3 cups mixed salad greens, loosely packed
· 8 slices of bacon, diced
· 2 thinly sliced chicken breasts
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
· 8-10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
· 2 carrots, peeled and diced
· 1 avocado, diced
· ½ red onion, diced
Directions:
1) On a large plate, loosely arrange the mixed salad greens. Set aside.
2) Heat a skillet on medium heat, add the diced bacon. Cook the bacon until crispy, about 5 minutes. Remove the cooked bacon to a plate. Add the chicken breasts to the skillet. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken breasts for 2-3 minutes on each side until the chicken breasts are golden brown and crispy on both sides. Let the chicken breasts rest for 10 minutes before cutting the chicken breasts into cubes.
3) To arrange the rest of the salad, place the quartered tomatoes in one strip down the far-left side of the plate. Next, arrange the diced carrots in one strip to the right of the diced tomatoes. Then, add the cooked and cubed chicken to the right of the carrots. After, add the diced avocado in a strip to the right of the chicken. Right after, arrange the crispy diced bacon in a strip to the right of the diced avocado. Finally, add the diced red onion to the right of the crispy bacon.
Takeaways: This salad can easily be customized to suit your taste. Feel free to add any vegetables and cheese of your choice. I served my salad with a simple red wine vinaigrette made with two parts vegetable oil, one part red wine vinegar, a pinch of salt, and some freshly cracked black pepper. You can also serve this salad with any salad dressing of your choice. If you are looking for a more traditional Cobb salad, check out my recipe for Cobb salad with honey mustard dressing.
