Warm BBQ Chicken Salad with Light Jalapeño Ranch Dressing

It’s the beginning of January, so big surprise I’m posting a salad! But, not just any salad a hearty BBQ chicken salad, with a creamy dressing that has been lightened up to ease your mind and maybe help loosen your jeans. Dieting or not this meal will not leave you wanting. This makes about 6 servings of a meal sized salad.

Chicken Ingredients:

3 -4 chicken breasts

1 jar BBQ sauce

salt and pepper

Chicken Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. To save your baking Sheet cover it with foil.

1) Pat your chicken dry with a paper towel, sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper . Place chicken on a baking sheet. smother the entire breast in BBQ sauce….reserving 1/3 of the sauce for later.

2) Cover with tinfoil and bake for 10 min. Then remove the foil and drizzle chicken with 1/2 of the remaining sauce. cook uncover for about 8 more minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink a temp of 165.

3) Once again, baste the chicken with a bit more sauce. Turn your oven onto broil and move your chicken to the top rack of the oven and cook for a minute or two more, or until the sauce on top of the breast becomes thick and bubbly. Set aside.

While your chicken is in the oven prepare your dressing and fried tortilla strips.

Dressing Ingredients:

3/4 cup light sour cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 jalapeno’s, stemmed and seeded

1 clove of garlic

1 Tbs chopped chives

Juice from 1 lime

2 handfuls of cilantro

1/4 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1) Place everything in a food processor or blender and puree.

Tortilla strips Ingredients:

6 corn tortillas, halved and cut into 1/4 inch thick strips

vegetable oil

salt

Directions:

1) Heat about one inch of oil in a heavy duty frying pan. When the oil is hot (test with a strip it should get golden pretty quickly) add 1/2 of your strips. Fry until golden and then drain on paper towels sprinkle with salt. Repeat.

Salad ingredients:

Anything you like in a salad, my suggestions are…

1 head Romain lettuce

1 head of butter lettuce

1 container grape tomatoes

1 cup corn

1 cup or more black beans

3 carrots

small can sliced olives

3 small sweet peppers

a handful of banana peppers

1 cucumber

Directions:

1) Top salad with warm chicken, tortilla strips and ranch dressing. Enjoy!