It’s still barely spring here in NC but the temps are already in the 80′s. I know it won’t last long so I’m making the most of it while I can. I make a chicken and ham salad all year-long and decided last night to grill everything outside to enjoy the weather. Of course you can use your indoor grill pan if it’s still cold where you are.
Ingredients for the salad:
- Baby Spinach
- Ham
- Chicken
- Bell peppers
- Asparagus
- Onions
I also cooked corn and put out shrimp with cocktail sauce. OK, now I know this portion doesn’t look terribly healthy but I do it for two reasons. First so it won’t burn when I put it on the grill and I also don’t add anymore butter or margarine when it reaches the table. Most of the margarine get’s thrown away. I wrap two ears of corn in each little package and close them up. I then put them on the top shelf of my grill. These take a while so plan on 20 minutes or so.
I chopped up all the peppers, onions and asparagus and put them in my grill pan. I spray the pan with Olive Oil first then add the veggies. I then spray the top of the veggies. This flavors the bottom and keeps them from burning. I like to spray on Olive Oil to limit the oil but to still add flavor. Here’s a tip. I also do the spraying over the sink so I don’t have a mess to clean up on my counters. I put this on the grill and cook for about ten minutes. They need around 10 minutes on the grill depending on how hot you turn your grill. I keep mine around medium and I think these took about 12 minutes with me turning them once.
I marinated the chicken cutlets in fat-free Italian dressing and put them on the grill. They didn’t take too long because they were so thin. I build the salad buy putting in the spinach and pre-cooked diced ham. Then I add the veggies and chicken when they are done. We didn’t use salad dressing but you could always use the fat-free dressing you used on the chicken to carry the flavor through the dish. So there you have it. A mostly healthy and yummy summer inspired salad meal.
