Summer Salad Recipe

Easy summer salads, lighter foods for a brighter summer.  Summer salads do not need dozens of hard to get ingredients or heavy bottled sauces. Go light and use a few good quality vegetables, well combined with a little well-chosen meat, fish, or dairy, (quality over quantity) and a simple but delicious homemade dressing.

For a quick tasty summer salad recipe, make it quick, make it light but make it taste sublime! Easy summer salads are the way to go, now that the winter blues are fading into the distance and salad days are here.

The best salads are light, bright and easy to prepare. After all who wants to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen when friends are round for lunch, the garden is in bloom and the wine is chilled and ready to pour.

But before you start to cook, you’ll save a lot of energy by buying the right ingredients for a simple salad. That way you don’t need the heavy bottled sauces and dressings to make a great flavour.  

Do you really want to take a beautiful crisp summer salad and soak it in a mixture of fat, sugar, salt and chemicals?

If you start off with great food and don’t do too much to it you don’t need all these strong tastes as you still have great food. All you need is to combine it well so that the flavours work together, have a nice crunchy texture and add a little light dressing to set it all off, and let the taste buds do the rest.  

Freshness is, as in all cooking, the way to a good salad. Don’t take what the supermarkets give you. Although it’s easier to pick up the ready packed tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bell peppers etc. To make sure you get the best, take a minute or two and pick over the vegetables, choose what is firm ripe and ready to use.

The same of course applies with meat and fish. There is a reason why supermarkets pre-package, and it’s not always convenience. So choose well, cook quickly and simply and your friends won’t have finished the wine by the time you get there!

Enjoy a little bit of summer now with this easy summer salad recipe.

Easy poached chicken salad Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts (skinless)

1 finely sliced red onion

1 whole half onion

4 good ripe tomatoes sliced thickly

250 grams/4ozs salad leaves mixed

4ozs raisins soaked in hot water for ten minutes

1 half lemon

2 fresh or dry bay leaves

1-teaspoon peppercorns black

1 small French, stick loaf or similar sliced into 1/2 slices

For the dressing: 1/4 cup olive oil,

1clove garlic crushed,

1/2 dessert spoon Dijon or other mild mustard,

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar.  

To make the dressing, whisk the vinegar and mustard together with the garlic, slowly add the olive oil while whisking and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring a pan of water to the boil with the bay leaves, 1/2 white onion, lemon and peppercorns.

Carefully add the chicken and simmer gently until cooked, if you’re unsure it is worth investing a few dollars in a meat thermometer. The temperature should be at least 75 degrees celcius/167 Fahrenheit, put the sliced bread on a baking tray and drizzle with the olive oil and season with salt.

Bake in a medium oven until crisp but soft in the middle. Mix the leaves together with the onions and raisins. Turn in the salad dressing and put into 4 good-sized bowls.

Place slices of tomato and bread around the edge. Slice the warm chicken at an angle and put attractively on top off the salad. Sit back, enjoy and get someone else to do the washing up.