Healthy Chicken Salad

Author: Gavin Azurin 804

Want something healthy to eat as an appetizer or meal? Well, this dish might be perfect for you. Today, you’ll be making a healthy chicken salad! Good amounts of protein, vegetables, and fruits. Throw out the junk food, bring in the ‘good’ food! Let’s begin.

The meal we have today is a healthy chicken salad. It has plenty of vegetables, fruits, and protein! This dish meets the criteria for the food guide because the majority of the dish has vegetables, a smaller portion of protein, and a bit of grain. The recommendations for the food guide are flexible and this recipe fits the recommendations of the updated Canadian Food Guide for the most part.

Note: You may adjust the amount of ingredients according to how many people are eating it or to your own preference.

Serves 15 people

Ingredients:

  • 3 romaine lettuces
  • 1 mango
  • 5-12 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 orange bell pepper
  • 1 cucumber
  • 5 boneless chicken breasts
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 lime
  • multi-grain croutons
  • 100% apple juice
  • 100mL of olive oil
  • 1 red onion
  • strawberries
  • honey
  • dijon mustard
  • ground black pepper
  • salt

Baking Instructions

  1. Put salt, black pepper, and olive oil onto chicken breasts for taste. Less salt is healthier
  2. Pan fry/sear the chicken breasts on both sides
  3. Preheat oven to 425°F
  4. When oven is ready, place chicken inside oven and bake for 15 minutes with an internal temperature of 165°F using oven probe
  5. Take out chicken when finished and rest it on a plate

Cooking chicken on both sides.

Preparation/Construction

  1. Wash all fruits and vegetables
  2. Cut romaine lettuce into pieces, throw out base
  3. Place romaine lettuce onto dish
  4. Cut bell peppers into small pieces and place on top of romaine lettuce
  5. Peel and cut red onion and place on top of dish
  6. Cut cucumber into slices and place on top of salad
  7. Peel carrots, cut carrots into thin slices and place on top of dish
  8. Cut cherry tomatoes into halves and place on top of dish
  9. Peel mango, cut into slices and place on top of dish
  10. Place multi-grain croutons on top of salad
  11. Slice chicken breasts into slices and place on top of salad
You’re half way there!

Making Dressing

  1. Cut strawberry stems off of strawberries
  2. Put strawberries into large bowl
  3. Put 100mL of apple juice into bowl
  4. Put 2 tbsp of honey into bowl
  5. Put 2 tbsp of dijon mustard into bowl
  6. Put three pinches of black pepper into bowl
  7. Juice one lime into bowl and juice one lemon into bowl
  8. Put 100mL of olive oil into bowl
  9. Purée the mixture until smooth

Final Steps

Slice the chicken breasts into slices. Put it on top of the salad. Drizzle the dressing on top of your dish, and you’re finished!

Enjoy!

Finished meal!

Reflection

Eating healthier is a good way to keep your body well maintained with the right nutrients, vitamins, and more. Promoting healthy eating can have positive impacts on people. How? By sharing how to eat healthily, it can make peoples’ unhealthy food choices, to much more healthier ones. Sharing with friends and family about how to eat healthy is a good way to promote healthy eating. By sharing it with them, they can take that information and use it in their own dishes. Another way to promote healthy eating is by making a website/blog like this one. You can discuss what you’ve put into the meal and why its healthy. A way to make healthy food is to put less sodium or salt into your foods. Some more ways to make or eat healthier foods is to consume foods with less saturated fats, less sugars, less artificial preservatives or flavours, and things alike. Those are things the body does not need and consuming them in high quantities might have negative affects to the body. How do I know how to make healthy food choices? Some tips I can give you is to:

Read the nutrition labels on packaged foods. Nutrition value labels gives you insight on what’s in the food like the amount of sodium that’s in it, or the amount of sugars. Reading the ingredient labels is also very helpful. Something to know is that the foods/ingredients that come first on the ingredient labels are the ones that have the most QUANTITY. If the first thing on the ingredient label is sugar, salt/sodium, corn syrup, or things alike, those are ingredients that isn’t very healthy for the body. By checking the ingredient labels, it can tell you what ingredient is more dominant and helps you decide whether you should eat it or not.

While making this assignment, I’ve learned different things. I’ve learned that it’s better to make your own meals because YOU get to choose what goes into your food. You get to keep the healthy foods like brown rice, mangoes, cucumbers, carrots, and more, while keeping the high amounts of salt, saturated fats, and processed foods away from your diet.

Overall, I have learned a bit from doing this assignment. It has been a fun experience and sharing the information I know makes me feel good because I can tell everyone some ways to eat well.