Chicken Salad with Lime Vinaigrette

We took a little detour from our not-really a chicken ceasar - salad. I tend to garnish the basics with extra veggies and things that I have in the 'fridge. Waste not; want not. Right? It's all good for ya stuff anyway. We needed to get rid of some chicken breasts and burritos weren't on the agenda after the last bomb. So back to another staple: chicken salad. Only this time I jazzed it up with lime vinaigrette. Read on my friends. I love our chicken salad nights. They are so easy to prepare with little or no work. It's just a pain in the butt to have to buy a lot of fresh ingredients and produce because then you feel pressured to use all of the ingredients before they go bad. Then you'll have wasted money and food. So whenever I buy fresh produce, I feel like I'm under the gun. Basically this happens every time I shop. So salads like these act as a perfect receptacle for perishable foods. With a good vinaigrette, it's hard to go wrong.

To prepare. I baked the trimmed, boneless chicken breasts on a sheet pan with olive oil, cilantro (dried), s & p. For the salad, I used a bag of spring mix. Then I added the goodies. The grape tomato halves, sweet onions slices, cannellini beans (rinsed & drained) and a sprinkling of leftover asiago cheese. I added the beans because we're down to very little in the food closet and I wanted to stretch out the salad a little. I also happen to like cannellini beans. For the lime vinaigrette, I used freshly squeezed lime juice, olive oil, honey, sugar in the raw, cilantro (dried), s&p. I had a little trouble incorporating the honey because it was a little dried out. Then, upon tasting it, I realized that I needed to sweeten it up a bit more to cut the tartness of the limes. And I used a generous amount of dried cilantro in it.

The verdict. Steve & I really enjoyed the chicken salad. He said it was delicious and that the chicken was tender and juicy. And we both loved the lime vinaigrette. Because I added the extra sugar in the raw, the dressing was a nice balance between sweet and tart though it wasn't really what I'd consider to be really sweet dressing like french or honey mustard. A great meal all made possible because fresh limes happened to be on sale. 3 for $1. How could I have passed that up? Sometimes my best inspirations come from just looking at our grocery store circular. And then it makes me extra happy that it's on sale. Alrighty folks. As always, Eat Something Good!