BLT Chicken Garden Salad

BLT Chicken Garden Salad is a simple, show stopper of a salad! The homemade creamy, tangy dressing pairs well with the saltiness of the Bacon and the sweetness of the Tomato. This Salad is easy to make large for a crowd, or small to keep it personal sized. Say ‘hello’ to your new lunch go-to!

Salad- The Perfect Quick Summer Lunch

I don’t know about you, but during the summertime I feel like I always get into a lunch rut. Yeah, my kids are great with turkey or peanut butter sandwiches day, after day, after day… but I get so tired of it!

But then it gets to be lunch time and I am hungry, I look in the fridge, think about eating another pb&j for approx. 3.6 seconds before giving up and eating leftover cookies. Kidding! … sort of. ?

Lettuce Salad though, that is the perfect summer lunch to me. I rarely want to spend the time making said salad though when I am hungry. I want food and I wanted it 10 minutes ago.

You know I’ve got a solution for this, right? I wouldn’t have brought up the issue if I didn’t. ?

Prepping Salad Ingredient In Advance

My solution is prepping the salad once and being able to eat it for the next few days. I have a few tips for you on how to do this most effectively.

First let’s talk about the lettuce. Yes, you can buy lettuce in the bag, but I find it goes soggy and brown much faster. Plus it is quite a bit more expensive than If you just buy a head of lettuce.

I like to use green leaf lettuce. It looks like Romaine Lettuce, but the ends are leafy and ruffled. This particular lettuce is very crisp and I find it stays fresh for quite a few days if prepped and stored correctly.

I wash each large leaf individually first and pat them dry with a paper towel. I then roughly chop it into bite sized pieces, rinse with water and then spin it in my salad spinner.

Then I divide the lettuce into serving sized portions and store each portion in a ziplock bag. Make sure to push all of the air out of the bag possible. Refrigerate until ready to use.

The tomatoes keep really well diced and in a storage container in the fridge. They will last a few days like that.

I always have cooked, sliced or shredded chicken in my freezer that is individually portioned. (Are you catching a trend here?) So I’ll pull some chicken out and put it in the fridge every day so I have some chicken to use for the next day’s lunch. You can find out everything you need to know about how I prep chicken here!

Bacon will be easy- just buy the pre-cooked microwaveable bacon from Costco. So delicious and easy!

The dressing keeps well in the fridge for 4-5 days, so just whip it up once and your set for the rest of the week!

This dressing is so versatile, it works with almost anything. If I have strawberries that need to be eaten, I toss those on my salad too. The dressing just tastes good with everything!

BLT Chicken Garden Salad

BLT Chicken Garden Salad is a simple, show stopper of a salad! The homemade creamy, tangy dressing pairs well with the saltiness of the Bacon and the sweetness of the Tomato. This Salad is easy to make large for a crowd, or small to keep it personal sized. Say ‘hello’ to your new lunch go-to!

Ingredients

• 1 heart green leaf lettuce
• 3 roma tomatoes
• 5-8 slices pre-cooked bacon
• 2 1/2 cups cooked, diced chicken
• 1 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Dressing

• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar

Instructions

1. Wash, spin and chop lettuce.
2. Dice the tomatoes.
3. Cook and crumble the bacon.
4. Arrange the lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, chicken and cheese in a large serving bowl.
5. Drizzle with dressing right before serving.

Recipe Notes

Alternatively, all items could be prepped (besides the bacon, microwave that right before your ready to eat!) and stored ahead of time to make a quick lunch. See above for more details on that.

Check out these other TASTY Salads!

Potato Salad
Caramel Apple Salad
Creamy Fruit Salad

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