Sun-Dried Tomato Salad with Grilled Chicken

Sun-Dried Tomato Salad with Grilled Chicken and Avocado

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In summer, when the season of fresh greens and young vegetables arrives, you can make a tasty and easy salad with sun-dried tomatoes, grilled chicken fillet and avocado. It is quite a filling appetizer that can easily become a proper breakfast. Sun-dried tomatoes go wonderfully with chicken and green salad and bring out the flavor of the dish.

They say sun-dried tomatoes come from Campania, where making them is a large-scale business. These days, though, tomatoes are dried not only in Italy but all over the world. By the way, in Sicily they put fresh tomatoes in pesto, but sometimes you can come across “red” pesto, a traditional recipe with sun-dried tomatoes, almonds and pine nuts. It is called pesto alla trapanese.

To make the salad with sun-dried tomatoes, you can use homemade or store-bought ones. If you don’t dry tomatoes yourself, you can buy sun-dried tomatoes in oil, sold in small jars. First, they make a tasty appetizer that goes especially well with bruschetta. Second, they are an excellent addition to Neapolitan pizza. And third, tomatoes in oil are great for appetizers, side dishes and all kinds of salads.

Honestly, drying tomatoes is not difficult, and in season you can make them yourself. The main ingredient of sun-dried tomatoes is the sun. As a rule, San Marzano tomatoes are dried, less often cherry tomatoes. Here we call such tomatoes “slivki” (plum tomatoes), but Italian tomatoes are more elongated. Halved tomatoes are laid out on a rack and dried in the sun for a week, moving them indoors to a dry room to protect them from night moisture. The tomatoes are stored in vegetable oil.

Grilled chicken fillet, lettuce, avocado and herbs, a simplified pesto as the dressing and pieces of sun-dried tomatoes: everything is arranged on a plate and the salad is ready to serve.

You can leave the chicken out and stick to vegetables, greens and cheese. But with grilled chicken fillet the salad is much tastier. If possible, you can use real pesto sauce instead of the cheese and basil. The ingredients are not mixed before serving, just like in the Cobb salad, so each ingredient keeps its own flavor. You can swap any of the additions for your own, as you see fit. Just don’t add components with a strong aroma. The salad is served as an appetizer or as a main dish for breakfast.

Ingredients

2 servings

For the salad

  • Sun-dried tomatoes in oil 100 g
  • Chicken fillet 1
  • Avocado 1
  • Hot pepper (optional) 1
  • Green onion (optional) 4-5
  • Hard cheese 50 g
  • Lettuce or romaine 1 bunch
  • Fresh basil 3-4 sprigs
  • Parsley 3-4 sprigs
  • Cherry tomatoes (optional) to taste
  • Salt, oregano, paprika, black pepper to taste

For the dressing

  • Oil from the jar of tomatoes 2-3 tbsp
  • Balsamic vinegar 1 tsp

Step-by-step recipe

Preparation

All the greens for the salad should be fresh and crisp. The avocado should be ripe, with soft, creamy flesh.

  1. Prepare the ingredients. It helps to soak the greens in cold water for a few hours ahead of time, then pat them dry. If the chicken fillet was frozen, move it from the freezer to the refrigerator in advance so it doesn’t leak. Take the sun-dried tomatoes out of the jar and keep 2–3 tbsp of the oil for the dressing.

    Ingredients for the salad.

  2. Prepare the chicken fillet. Pound the fillet lightly, trying to flatten it to an even thickness. To avoid damaging the fillet, it is best to pound it with the flat side of a mallet or the spine of a knife. Season the fillet with salt and pepper on both sides and sprinkle with a pinch of sweet paprika or red hot pepper, if you like.

    Grill the chicken fillet on a grill or in a grill pan over medium heat until fully cooked and browned: when pierced at the thickest point, the juice should run clear. Let the fillet cool a little, as it goes into the dish warm.

    Grilled chicken fillet.

Assembling the salad

Any salad leaves without a bitter aftertaste will do, for example lettuce or romaine, oakleaf, and even chard may work well. Arugula or endive, though, I wouldn’t use.

  1. Prepare the greens and put them on a plate. Wash the lettuce and pat it dry. Tear the leaves into pieces with your fingers. Chop the green onion and parsley and mix them with the salad leaves. Spread the greens on the plate in an even layer.

    Torn lettuce leaves.

  2. Make the cheese topping. Grate the hard cheese, such as Parmesan, pecorino, Grana Padano or any other aged cheese, and mix it with fresh basil leaves. Grind everything in a blender into a uniform, grainy mass of a pleasant green color. Sprinkle the salad generously with the mixture.

  3. Peel the avocado and remove the pit. Slice the avocado and lay the slices on the salad leaves.

    Salad and avocado.

  4. Slice the slightly cooled chicken fillet into thin, elongated pieces across the grain. Lay the fillet on the salad leaves. If you like, add a hot pepper cut into rings, as many people enjoy some heat in a salad. Sprinkle the salad with a pinch of dried oregano.

    Salad with chicken fillet.

  5. Make the dressing. Mix 2–3 tbsp of oil from the jar of tomatoes with 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar and whisk with a fork. Pour the dressing over the salad, but don’t toss it.

Serving

  1. Just before serving, place halves or quarters of sun-dried tomatoes on top of the salad leaves. The salad with sun-dried tomatoes is ready. It doesn’t need to be chilled or to soak in the dressing, and can be eaten right away.

    Salad with sun-dried tomatoes

    The salad can make a great breakfast that keeps you full until lunch. As an appetizer, it is best served on a large platter with many portions of the salad laid out at once. If you like, add fresh cherry tomatoes.

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Calories and macros

485 kcal

Serving ≈ 400 g

  • Protein40 g34% of kcal
  • Fat28 g53% of kcal
  • Carbs14 g12% of kcal

100 g123 kcalProtein 10.2 gFat 7 gCarbs 3.7 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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