Lemon Chicken Chopped Salad Recipe with Soy Vinaigrette: Fresh summer vegetables are in full swing in the chopped salad that is served up with sliced lemon chicken and a soy vinaigrette.
I love this time of year with all of the wonderful summer produce in peak season. There are just so many things to make and a chop salad seemed like the perfect recipe to whip up. It’s hot outside and it’s really hard to eat super heavy meals, so a delicious salad loaded up with cool vegetables and served up with a lemon marinated chicken and soy vinaigrette just hit the spot.
How to Make a Chopped Salad
Chopped salads, or as some people call them “chop salads,” are a combination of fresh small diced vegetables and protein that are tossed together and served up with a vinaigrette. To me chopped salads just scream summer time because of all the vegetables you can put in there.
There are so many wonderful fresh veggies in season that this salad is probably on the high end of how many things are actually in it, but I just couldn’t resist when I was at the grocery store.
Washing fresh vegetables
Whenever I’m making a chopped salad like this one, or simply making any recipe with fresh produce then I always make sure to rinse the vegetables really well. When it comes to washing fresh vegetables I usually roll out my Franke roller mat right over my oversized beautiful Franke farmhouse sink.
We use the roller mat for so many things from drying dishes, to using it as a hot pad for hot pans to a colander. I love this thing and seriously use it every single day! My franke gooseneck faucet with hose makes it super easy to spray off all sides of the fresh vegetables to ensure they are clean. I’m obsessed with how long the hose is because the sink is seriously huge and would be much harder to clean if it weren’t long.
Cutting Vegetables for a Chopped Salad:
Once the vegetables for the chopped salad are clean then they need to be small diced. If for some reason your knife skills are a little rough, then it’s totally cool to just finely chop all of the vegetables. Sure, they may not be uniform in shape, but just as long as they are very small you’ll be good.
I used a combo of peppers, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, onions, corn, green onions, tomatoes and celery for the vegetables and served them over finely chopped fresh romaine lettuce and green leaf lettuce in this chopped salad recipe.
I want to stress that this recipe can absolutely be fine-tuned to whatever you want to put in it. If you want to add zucchini, go ahead. You want to put in some sprouts, cool! Maybe you want to use different lettuces altogether, go right ahead. Please make this recipe work for you!
Marinated Lemon Chicken:
I knew I wanted to serve some kind of protein into this chopped salad, so I marinated up some chicken in an extremely flavor marinade. I used lemons, sliced garlic, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, oil and a bit of thyme in this marinated chicken.
It’s important for you to whisk all of these ingredients until it resembles a vinaigrette and then pour it over your chicken. I like to marinate in plastic bags because I can move the bag around to ensure the chicken is completely coated and sort of set it up in a corner of the refrigerator so that the lemon chicken stays submerged.
When it comes to marinated chicken it’s crucial to let it marinate at least overnight. I know, I know that means it requires some meal planning here, but longer marinated food tastes significantly better. If you do this, you’ll be thanking me for sure!
How to Make a Soy Vinaigrette:
This soy vinaigrette is literally the simplest vinaigrette recipe of all time. I literally put some oil, soy sauce, red wine vinegar and a little bit of honey into a jar and shook it until it was emulsified.
This soy vinaigrette is absolutely delicious and as I stated so incredibly easy to make, and not-too-mention it goes outstanding in this chopped salad recipe!
Be sure to check out this amazing chopped salad recipe!
Lemon Chicken Chopped Salad Recipe with Soy Vinaigrette
Ingredients
For the Lemon Chicken:
- 1 cup of oil
- ¼ cup of soy sauce
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- 4 to 6 thyme sprigs
- 3 chicken breasts
For the Soy Vinaigrette:
- ½ cup of oil
- 1 ½ tablespoon of soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon of honey
For the Chopped Salad:
- 1 head of small diced romaine lettuce
- 1 head of small diced green leaf lettuce
- 1 each seeded and small diced red and yellow bell peppers
- ½ seeded and small diced cucumber
- ½ peeled and small diced sweet onion
- 1 ½ cups of small diced cherry tomatoes
- 2 shredded carrots
- 4 small diced radishes
- 4 small diced stalks of celery
- 2 trimmed cooked ears of corn
- ½ cup of roasted salted sunflower seeds
- ½ cup of sliced green onions
- ½ cup of micro greens
Instructions
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Chicken: Place all of the ingredients together into a plastic bag and mix until completely combined and marinate in your refrigerator overnight or for at least 12 hours.
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Remove the chicken from the marinade and add to a hot pan over medium-high heat and sear the chicken on both sides until golden brown and cooked through out, about 6 minutes per side. Slice and set aside.
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Vinaigrette: Add all ingredients to a container with a lid and shake until emulsified. Set aside.
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To Plate: Add the lettuces to a large bowl and evenly sprinkle on or fan out all of the small diced vegetables and sliced chicken.
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Garnish with the seeds, green onions and micro greens.
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