I love salads, especially quick salads! But not those at restaurants where their house salad is lettuce, tomato, carrots, and a dressing that clearly came from a bottle! Yuck.
Anyway – the last two nights, Patryk and I had these loaded quick salads, and I thought I’d share them with you! I’m not posting exact recipes because I rarely cook with recipes. I eyeball most things, unfortunately, but I’ll make sure to include most ingredients so you get the idea. These aren’t super unique meals, by the way, so I’m in no way “showing off my culinary skills.” I’m simply sharing meal ideas we enjoyed!
There’s only one thing here that “lazy” doesn’t apply to and it’s the common ingredient in both salads: pickled onions! OMG. I am so excited about making them myself, I ate all of it in two meals. Definitely making more soon! You can completely skip this part if you’d like because this requires you to make it in advance unless you already have some. It did add that extra new flavor we usually don’t have in our salads!
Kale, Sweet Potato & Chicken Salad
~40-45 minutes
I roasted up some sweet potatoes and chicken thighs (boneless and skinless) at 400º for about 30-35 minutes. Seasoned the potatoes with paprika, cinnamon, salt & pepper, garlic powder (because I put garlic in everything), and a little olive oil. Rub for the chicken thighs: olive oil, garlic powder, salt & pepper, paprika, and some black garlic. The chicken would be amazing grilled, but 1.) I don’t have a grill and 2.) this is a lazy meal. Nobody has time to mess with a darn grill. This cooked while I kept working.
Massaged some kale with olive oil (I learned not everyone does this. If you haven’t, you should!), and added some baby spinach. I sliced up the chicken thighs, tossed it in with the sweet potatoes, some beans (I’d like to try this with garbanzo), and tore up some leftover bocconcini I had in the fridge. Crumbled feta would probably work great for this, but I wanted to use my bocconcini before it goes bad. Topped it with pickled onions, some leftover bacon chopped up, and tossed it all together! Nom, nom, nom.
The “Taco” Pile
~20-25 minutes
I can’t even claim this is as a taco salad or taco bowl. It’s just a pile of things with taco seasoned ground beef and flavors we usually get from tacos. Haha. We actually really liked it for something we threw together at the last minute because I finished working late tonight.
Cooked the ground beef with cumin, paprika, ancho chili powder, cayenne, salt & pepper, garlic & onion powder, and oregano. Just season to your liking honestly. I had leftover black beans, so I threw those in the pan when the beef was done just to warm them up. Started the pile on a plate with spinach, some quinoa, then the beef and beans mixture. I sprinkled some Mexican cheese blend (whatever we got from the store) so it can melt on top of the beef. Typically I’d have some pico de gallo when I make taco bowls, but since I had pickled onions, I skipped the pico. I did a little sour cream, chopped fresh tomatoes, and some cilantro. Squeeze a little lime on there, and voila!
So that’s what’s for dinner! What are your favorite meals or quick salads to make when you need something quickly?
