Lemon Chicken and Kale Summer Salad
Make on Fresco
The quickest way to eat on a hot day you can even replace the lemon chicken tenders with a purchased BBQ or roasted chicken.
When the heat hits in Australia, it is good to have a quick and easy go to salad that can feed the hungry hoardes, be added to at will or as needed and still not heat up the kitchen of the chef too much. Do I hear a big collective YES on that one?
This is the salad for when it's too hot to cook but you still want dinner to feel like dinner. Tender lemony chicken, massaged kale (yes, you have to massage it, which the Thermie does for you, and yes, it's worth the extra few seconds), creamy avocado and pomegranate seeds that burst like little jewels every time you take a bite. It's fresh, it's filling, and it's got more colour than most of what's in your fridge right now.
The trick is the lemon, which does double duty. It flavours the chicken and brightens the dressing, and it softens the kale so it's silky rather than chewy. Everything can be prepped ahead, so on a warm evening all you need to do is toss it together, grab a fork and head outside. Summer eating doesn't get much easier than this.
Need
-
Marinade
- 1 lemons juice only
- 1 Teaspoon pink salt flakes BUY
- 100 Grams Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) BUY
- 500 Grams chicken tenderloins
-
Salad Dressing
- 100 Grams Easy Thermomix mayonnaise Recipe
- 40 Grams Creme Fraiche (homemade) or purchased sour cream Recipe
- 2 Teaspoons French Mustard
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- Pinches pink salt flakes BUY
-
Salad
- 1 Bunch kale, leaves only
- 2 medium carrots, in chunks
- 1 pomegranate, cut into pieces
- 1-2 avocado sliced
- 2 mandarins, peeled and sliced across the centre
- 1-2 Lebanese/English cucumbers, sliced
- other salad veggies of choice if desired
Do
- 1
Prepare marinade by whisking ingredients in a small bowl with a fork.
- 2
Pour over chicken tenders and refrigerate for several hours, covered.
- 3
To make dressing, place garlic into the mixing bowl and chop 2 sec/speed 5.
- 4
Add remaining dressing ingredients and blend 6 sec/speed 6. Remove almost all of it from bowl and set aside.
- 5
Leave approximately 2 tbsp dressing in bowl. Place enough kale in the mixing bowl to fill to the 3/4 mark. Chop kale 2-3 sec/speed 5. Tip out into serving platter and repeat with all remaining kale, adding dressing as required.
- 6
Place carrots into the mixing bowl and chop 3 sec/speed 6. Add to serving platter.
- 7
To de-seed pomegranate, place pieces (including peel and membrane) into the mixing bowl and chop 2 sec/Reverse/speed 3. Remove the seeds, discarding all of the membrane and peel, pith etc. You may need to return the larger pieces to the bowl and repeat depending on the size of your pomegranate.
- 8
Add all other ingredients to the salad platter. I like to serve this in individual serving bowls, but if you prefer, just put it all onto one platter.
- 9
To cook marinated chicken, drain marinade and heat a grill pan with a dash of EVOO over a medium to high heat. Sear the chicken tenderloins until charred, but cooked through. You can reduce the marinade and serve with the chicken as well if you like.
- 10
Serve chicken with the salad and all remaining dressing dolloped on top.
- 11
Alternatively and to keep the heat in your kitchen to a bare minimum, use a purchased BBQ chicken.
Tenina Holder is a wife, mother of five and grandmother of nine, who started cooking in the olden days before Thermomix was even a thing.
Tenina has become the premium go to source for all Thermomix expertise and of course fresh and easy recipes that work. Her cooking classes and foodie trips are sold out in literally hours, her cookbooks appear on the Australian best seller lists and her social reach is in the millions. Her Insider Club is the most fun you can have with a Thermomix and you really should join her! She believes chocolate, butter and salt are health foods. Her food positivity mantra is, eat everything, just not all at once!
