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Poached Chicken Pesto Salad

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Bev Cooks
Updated Apr 25, 2017
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With some shredded chicken and homemade pesto, you can mix up this simple but delicious salad for a light dinner or easy weekday lunches.

More About This Recipe

  • Just a few shreds and a quick blitz away from one heckuva salad. Oh, look. I'm at that whole pesto thing again. If we were face to face I'd whip out my best Jim Carrey voice from the Mask and say, "SOMEBODY STOP MEEEH." But then you might want to karate chop me. So, it's safer that we have these walls of the interweb between us. Alright so check out this salad. Remember when I made broccoli pesto that one time? And then asparagus pesto that other time? Well, I'm about to skip to your Lou, pigeons, because this time I went the spinach route and things get TOW UP. And by tow up I mean insanely healthy and simple and beautiful and the scandal of it all is almost too much to bear. Why don't we just start before I'm all, SSSSSSSSSSMOKINNNN' on ya. Make this at the beginning of the week and you've got lunches all week!

Poached Chicken Pesto Salad

  • Prep Time 30 min
  • Total 30 min
  • Servings 4
  • Ingredients 10
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Ingredients

  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 6 cups baby spinach, divided
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds
  • 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 ribs celery, chopped
  • 1 can (14.5 oz) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
  • 2 pinches coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

  • Step 
    1
    Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the chicken and boil until cooked all the way through, 20 minutes. Transfer to a plate or boil and let cool. Once cooled, shred with your fingers.
  • Step 
    2
    In the meantime, place 2 cups spinach in a food processor. Add the almonds, cheese, garlic, salt and pepper. Pulse a few times. With the motor running, add the oil in a thin stream.
  • Step 
    3
    Toss pesto with shredded chicken. Add the celery, beans and tomatoes. Give another toss.
  • Step 
    4
    Serve chicken pesto mixture over the remaining 4 cups of spinach, equally divided onto 4 plates.

Nutrition

No nutrition information available for this recipe
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