Skinny-ish Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad

There is just something universally loved about chicken salad!  My Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad combines the tender, succulent marinated chicken (from my earlier post, Grilled Balsamic Chicken Breast Tenders) with a creamy, lite dressing (I’m on a diet, you know!), the crunch of celery, onions and nuts plus a bit of sweet from grapes.  Serve it on a bed of greens as a salad or put it on slices of delicious whole grain bread – either way, you’ll want to have it again.  And again.  And again!

It gets better every day.  So, while you can eat it right away after you make it, it’s even better the next day.  And the next day.  And the next day.  If you have any left!

Sometimes I have Poached Chicken Breast Tenders in the refrigerator and sometimes I have Grilled Balsamic Chicken Breast Tenders in the refrigerator, so I use one or the other when making chicken salad.  This time, I had Grilled Balsamic Chicken Breast Tenders in the refrigerator, so decided to share this particular chicken salad recipe on the blog!  I have another delicious chicken salad recipe that I’ll be sharing in the future, but it’s made with the Poached Chicken Breast Tenders; so stay tuned!

Here’s what you do:

1. Remove Grilled Balsamic Chicken Breast Tenders from the refrigerator.
2. Chop chicken into chunks and put in a mixing bowl.
3. Measure out walnuts.
4. Coarsely chop walnuts.  Add to mixing bowl.
5. Wash grapes.
6. Cut grapes in quarters.  Add to mixing bowl.
7. Trim celery.
8. Slice celery lengthwise into 4 pieces, each.
9. Finely dice celery.  Add to mixing bowl.
10. Choose a small red onion.
11. Peel and finely dice 1/2 of the red onion.  Add to mixing bowl.

1. Chicken and vegetables in mixing bowl.
2. Combine ingredients with a spoon.
3. Measure out non-fat Greek yogurt and add to mixing bowl.
4. Measure out light mayonnaise and add to mixing bowl.
5. Mix with spoon until well combined.
6. Serve on a bed of field greens.

OR…

Make a Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad Sandwich!

1. Choose your favorite whole grain bread.  I use Safeway’s Nut & Grain bread.
2. Cover one slice of bread with chicken salad and spread to cover bread.
3. Top with other slice of bread.
4. Cut in half and serve.

I’ve been working on improving my photography through food styling.  So, I’ve been gathering “props” from around my house plus buying surfaces that are non-reflective.  I’ve mentioned before, in earlier posts, that both my kitchen table and dining room table have highly polished surfaces plus I have a granite countertop.  All reflect the light in various ways, mostly adding glare and shadows to my pictures!

So, I’ve been looking for ways to solve that problem, since I don’t have a photography studio!  Here’s what I did with this set-up to photograph my Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad…

In the picture above, you can see that I covered the back of my kitchen table with a long rattan table runner.  It’s all about covering that shiny surface!  Then, I added a rattan placement to the left and a brown placemat with green embroidery underneath the salad bowl and continuing to the right of the photo.  I then added a green napkin on the left and a dark-brown matte-finished cheese board above the salad bowl.

On the cheese board, I put a few walnuts and bunches of grapes.  The little, itty, bitty grapes are Champagne Grapes and are they ever sweet and delicious!  I’ve read some food photography articles and they say to include bits of the ingredients that are in your recipe.  You’ll see that I scattered a few more walnuts on the placemat in the bottom right, just below the forks.  Plus, I added a potted Christmas cactus for more interest.

Once the props are decided, it becomes about moving them around to get the best photo!  Here, I moved the forks and the napkin.

Here I focused on the chicken salad, so the props are fuzzy in the background.

This time, I brought in the sandwich.  This shot includes not only the sandwich, but the props.

Here’s the final “long shot” that I created for Pinterest, focusing on the sandwich with the props blurry in the background.

And, here’s the recipe:

Print

Hope you enjoy my Grilled Balsamic Chicken Salad and I hope you enjoyed the food styling tutorial!

Tootles,