Pre-Valentine's Dinner

Last night we had a special Pre-Valentine’s Dinner. My friend Linda gave me this recipe a few years ago and it’s become a family favorite. The best thing about it (besides being easy and fast) is that it’s pretty low on the calorie and sodium scale, two things we look for at our house. Another cool thing about the Chicken Walnut Salad with Maple Syrup Vinaigrette is you can switch it up by adding or leaving out ingredients as you prefer.

My mom recently sent us some walnuts from Oregon. I know, sounds a little weird, my mom sends nuts. But she’s retired, and cracking nuts keeps her off the streets at night.

Fresh walnuts from Mom - with love

Anywho, she called because I forgot to tell her we got them and to thank her for them – my bad. So I remembered this recipe and I love “Salad Suppers” because they don’t take much time to fix.

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This recipe makes enough for 3 large servings. I boiled 3 chicken tenders, but you can use grilled, leftover fried or roasted chicken. Of course if you want to go vegetarian, skip the chicken.

Chop chicken into bite size chunks

• Use cooled or cold chicken chopped into bite size chunks.
• Coarsely chop the nuts.
• In a bowl add the lettuce, chicken, walnuts and apples (1/2 cup chopped, not necessary to peel).
• Make the Vinaigrette and shake well in a covered container.
• Pour the Vinaigrette over the salad and toss.

That’s it. Normally we don’t add the dressing to the salads, but this is really a light dressing, not heavy at all.


Chicken Walnut Salad with Maple Syrup Vinaigrette

One aside: the original recipe calls for apples and I think it’s better with them, but oddly enough, I bought 2 apples night before last, took one for lunch and tonight when I went to make the salad, the remaining apple was gone. Two people in the house, I ate one and the other one mysteriously disappeared. My husband has “no recollection” of the other apple. No worries, I’m good at improvising. I also bought some gorgeous strawberries yesterday and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought what the heck, so I used strawberries instead and they worked. And isn’t it pretty too, the little touch of red?