Chicken and salad night

Do you have kids? I don't, but my 11 year old niece lives with me and sometimes, it's really hard to get her to eat healthy meals. I don't pack her lunch because she eats at school everyday (and not sure how I feel about the lunches they are serving up either). But eating at school does help limit the chaos in the morning in the kitchen. Either way, I still try to make healthy dinners to make sure she is getting her needed vegetables, fruits and protein each day. This is how I came up with chicken and salad night. I figure, once a week (at least), we have salad with chicken to start her down the path of actually liking salads.

When I was younger, my salad consisted of iceberg lettuce with mayonnaise as the dressing. Gross, I know. But it worked for me. My niece, thank goodness, likes ranch - not that it's a far cry from mayonnaise, but I'll take it. So I buy the ready-packs of mixed green salad you can buy at the store because it has more crunch like iceberg, which she prefers, but also includes some other more nutritious lettuce varieties. She douses it in ranch, but eats the whole bowl. Then, I either grill up some chicken thighs, or pan fry them for a few minutes on each side, then finish them off in the oven until cooked through. My niece and brother love it. I love this type of chicken versus a boneless breast because I can shred the chicken from the bone, and add it to my salad. This works great for packing a salad for the office the next day too.

If you want to spruce up the salad a bit, try slowly adding additional ingredients such as tortilla strips for more crunch and flavor, or dried cranberries for a sweet touch, or even some shredded cheese.  Slowly offering and getting kids to try new added ingredients will only help to expand their palate.

For more salad recipes, check out Keep it in the Kitchen.