Summer Salad Recipe - Poached Chicken with Fruit Salsa

As I mentioned in my post for barbecued ribs I am really enjoying summer and all that the season brings. The first fresh produce is coming out of the garden – spinach! We have lots and lots of fresh spinach and that is the start of salad season here on the farm. We love it! Once the fresh greens start coming in I make salads almost every night. I love coming up with a new summer salad recipe.

Last night I wasn’t sure what to make for dinner – I had the last of the cherries, some fresh picked strawberries, a chicken breast, and some spinach. I knew I could turn this into a great chicken recipe and with just a little effort I did.

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Table of Contents

Summer Salad Recipe – Poached Chicken with Fruit Salsa

Serves 2

1 whole chicken breast
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate
2 cups water
1/4 cup bourbon
1 TBS thyme
1 TBS coriander seeds
1 TBS whole allspice
3 dried Thai chilies if desired
1 tsp salt
3 cups fresh spinach
2 oranges
1 cup pitted, halved cherries
1 cup hulled and quartered strawberries
1/4 cup whole almonds
1 1/2 TBS olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

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Add the orange juice concentrate, water, (or if you don’t have concentrate you can just use orange juice) bourbon, thyme, allspice and coriander to a medium saucepan.

Add the chicken breast. Make sure it is covered by the liquid – if you need to add a little bit of water that is ok.
Heat over medium low heat – DO NOT BOIL – for about 20 – 30 minutes until the chicken is just cooked. It will depend on how big your piece of chicken is. Mine took 30 minutes.

Immediately put the chicken breast in a bowl with ice water to chill.
While the chicken is chilling cut the oranges into supremes – squeezing the juice into a separate bowl or glass to use for the dressing. (you can find instructions and a video on cutting oranges into supremes)
Cut the supremes in half. Add the halved cherries and quartered strawberries to the oranges and mix gently.
Roughly chop the almonds and then toast them
Rip the spinach into bite sized pieces and add to a bowl.
Take 2 TBS of the reserved orange juice and add the olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Stir with a fork or small whisk until emulsified.
Drizzle some of the dressing over the spinach and mix well.
Take the chicken out of the ice water and pat dry. Slice it thinly.

To plate: lay down a layer of the dressed spinach, top with three or four slices of chicken, add the fruit salsa putting some on top of the chicken and sprinkling some around the plate.
Sprinkle half of the almonds around the salad.
Drizzle a little more dressing over the chicken.

How Was This Summer Salad Recipe?

This was a delicious salad. I think the hubby would have eaten a third serving if there had been one. He’s trying to lose weight so I am limiting quantities. Everything was so fresh and yummy. The almonds added a lovely crunch. The chicken was cooked just right and wasn’t at all dry. The strawberries had been picked just a couple of hours before we ate dinner and they were as sweet as can be. I love salad season!

While you are here be sure to check out some of our other chicken recipes like Easy and Delicious Chicken for Two, Sweet and Spicy Chicken or Chicken Fricasee.