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Mediterranean Chicken and Cheese Salad

The chicken and cheese salad is a light, fresh, and full of flavor second course: a perfect dish for a light dinner or for those who love to experiment with delicious recipes ready in a few minutes. Everyone knows the Caesar salad and the variant with the addition of chicken, today we have experimented with an even more delicious alternative with Emmentaler cheese, a dish that has convinced us and that you will surely like it too. Follow the recipe and tell us what you think.

As an alternative to Emmentaler cheese, you can use Asiago cheese or Parmesan flakes.

You can add your favorite ingredients to your salad: carrots and black olives, for example, create an excellent balance of flavors.

You can flavor and enrich your chicken and cheese salad with a homemade mayonnaise sauce, or with a fragrant tzatziki sauce, excellent with crispy chicken.

If you love strong flavors, prepare a vinegar, oil, and salt vinaigrette and add a tablespoon of sweet mustard.

You can keep the chicken and cheese salad for a day, closed in an airtight container: but to prevent the chicken from losing crunchiness, we advise you to consume it immediately, just prepared.

The Origins Of Caesar Salad

If the Caesar salad is for many a tribute to the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, it was in any case born in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Two Italians are fighting over paternity, Giacomo Junia, who wanted to pay homage to his native country and to the murdered emperor. And on the other side Cesare Cardini, gave his own name to his salad, to satisfy Californians who came to drink alcohol in his establishment in Tijuana ( Mexico ) during prohibition.

How To Prepare Chicken For Caesar Salad?

If it does not appear in the basic recipe, chicken is an ingredient that is found overwhelmingly in Caesar salad. Most of the time, it is chicken breast cooked in a pan and then cut into strips. It is golden brown and can be enjoyed hot, warm, or cold. But since it is an American recipe, we often find the chicken in a breaded version. How to achieve it? It's very simple, cut the chicken into pieces (like nuggets, or then into strips). On a plate, mash some rusk or stale bread (you can also use slightly thick breadcrumbs). In a bowl, beat two eggs, you can add spices to it, like turmeric, paprika, or chopped herbs. Take your pieces of chicken, flour them, dip them in the egg, then in the breadcrumbs. You can make one or two round trips. Then cook the chicken in a pan where you have heated oil, or directly in the deep fryer.

Cuisine
Time
Prep Time: 15 min Total Time: 15 mins
Servings 4
Best Season Summer
Description

A very simple salad based on pan-seared chicken, cheese, fresh spinach, and cherry tomatoes: a simple and genuine balance, one with which you can never go wrong.

Ingredients
  • chicken breast
  • 120 grams emmentaler
  • 200 grams spinach
  • 100 grams green salad
  • 100 grams cherry tomatoes
  • 1 clove garlic
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Cut the chicken breast into strips or cubes no larger than 2 centimeters.

  2. In a non-stick pan, brown a clove of garlic in a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and, once golden, remove it from the pan and add the chicken.

  3. Cook over high heat for 5 minutes until the chicken is well browned on all sides.

  4. In the meantime, clean the curly salad and the baby spinach, pass the leaves under cold running water and pat them with a sheet of absorbent paper.

  5. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and lightly salt them to make them lose the juices.

  6. Cut the Emmental cheese into strips with the aid of a grater.

  7. Compose your salad: at the base put the baby spinach and the curly salad, then add the cherry tomatoes, chicken, and cheese, season with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper, and mix before serving.