If you have leftover chicken breast in the fridge and don’t feel like cooking, this winter chicken salad is a clever and dinner-saving solution. It can be prepared in a few minutes, is tasty but light, and allows you to use seasonal vegetables you already have on hand: in my case, broccoli, radicchio, and carrots… but you can customize it each time based on what you find in the fridge.
It’s one of those practical recipes that solve dinner without stress and works great as a one-dish meal for lunch, perhaps to take to the office or prepare in advance. Complete, colorful, and easy to adapt to your tastes, this chicken salad is the perfect example of how, with a few simple ingredients, you can bring a balanced and flavorful dish to the table.
Here are more simple, seasonal recipes:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Affordable
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 2People
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 1 chicken breast (already cooked)
- 7 oz broccoli (florets)
- 2 carrots
- 5.3 oz Treviso red radicchio, early variety
- 1 clove garlic
- extra virgin olive oil
- apple cider vinegar
- soy sauce (to taste)
- salt
Tools
- Pan
- Pot
- Colander
- Bowl
Preparation
Separate the broccoli florets, wash them, and boil for 5 minutes in salted boiling water.
Peel the carrots and slice them.
Heat a pan with a drizzle of oil and a clove of garlic. Add the carrots, salt them, and cook for a few minutes. Add the broccoli and continue cooking until the vegetables are tender but firm (1).
Clean the radicchio, wash, dry, and slice it into strips (2).
After removing any small bones or tendons, cut the chicken breast into pieces (3).
If you don’t have already cooked chicken breast, you can use classic slices and grill them for a few minutes on a grill.
Combine the chicken, radicchio, broccoli, and carrots in a bowl. Add another drizzle of oil, some apple cider vinegar (or wine vinegar if you prefer), and 1-2 tablespoons of soy sauce, if you like. Mix to distribute the seasoning.
The winter chicken salad is ready, serve it at room temperature or slightly warm.
Advice and Notes
You can also sauté the radicchio in the pan if you prefer it cooked rather than raw.
You can also season with balsamic vinegar or add herbs to taste.
You can cook the broccoli directly in the pan if you want to avoid blanching them.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
Can I add other vegetables?
Of course, you can vary the vegetables based on what you have available, adding for example thinly sliced fennel, champignon mushrooms, or diced potatoes cooked in the pan.
How can I store the winter chicken salad?
You can store it for a day in the fridge, in a tightly closed container. Then you can enjoy it at room temperature, or heat it if you prefer.
