Foodie Friday: Buffalo Chicken Salad/Wrap

Before I share what I rustled up, I have a recipe to recommend! When Googling for an easy teriyaki salmon recipe, I found a GREAT recipe for it. It's from Tammy's Recipes, and it is in fact easy. I fortunately had all the marinade ingredients, so it was a cinch to throw it together and throw it in the fridge! I let it marinade for about 4 hours, and then baked it exactly according to instructions. I served it with brown rice and broccoli, and it was SO GOOD. So easy, so fast, and SO YUMMY. Just a warning: The teriyaki sauce is very, very salty, and the skinnier pieces of the filet will really absorb the sauce - and the salt. You can either try cutting the marinade with some water, or maybe let it marinade for less time. But seriously, give it a shot! So good!

All right, so Buffalo Chicken Salad/Wrap. I wouldn't dare to call this a recipe, just a suggestion of how to throw together various food stuffs for maximum deliciousness!

The basic ingredients:

• Chicken strips or "Popcorn" chicken (I used popcorn chicken from Foster's Farms - in the freezer section)
• Frank's Red Hot Buffalo sauce
• Greens you like (I used butter, green leaf, and baby spinach)
• Carrots
• Celery
• Cucumbers
• Blue Cheese or blue cheese dressing
• if you don't like blue cheese, ranch would be tasty, too!

For the chicken, I baked it according to the instructions - I prefer not to fry, and baking works well for getting crispiness on the breading! Fill a resealable baggie with a good amount (about 2-3 tbsps) of the sauce; once the chicken is ready, toss it in the baggie and shake it around to get the chicken doused in the sauce!

For the salad, get all the greens you prefer, and prep the veggies. I like to either use pre-shredded carrots or I peel a carrot directly into the salad. I chop up the celery and cucumbers (I like to peel the cucumber and scoop out the seeds, the cut it in half-moon shapes), then I pour some of the dressing and mix it all up before I throw the sauced chicken on top. (If I'm using blue cheese in addition to the dressing, I'll throw the cheese in at this point too.)

The chicken goes on top, then I pour a leetle extra dressing on top of the chicken to help mellow out the heat of the buffalo sauce!

For the wrap, I do the same for the most part, except I cut the celery and cucumber into long strips instead of slices, and wrap the whole bunch in a flour tortilla. Yum!

If you're trying to make it healthy, you could do all the same things with boneless skinless chicken breasts (just maybe go a little lighter with the buffalo sauce, 'cuz the meat could absorb a LOT more sauce). If you like blue cheese, it'd be good to use the cheese itself instead of the dressing version. The cheese is very strong and flavorful which means you don't need a lot for a lot of flavor punch; I'd use the cheese and drizzle low-fat ranch instead to save some calories!


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