While wandering the glorious Whole Foods salad bar a few weeks back, I quickly had to dismiss nearly every pre-mixed salad. See, I was doing Whole30 and nearly every mixture had soy or sugar or a non-compliant oil. That is until I stumbled upon the glorious Paleo Buffalo Chicken Salad. Could it be for real? Yep, I read the ingredient list (and the re-read because I was paranoid that there was no way something that looked that good could be compliant) and this was indeed Whole30 approved! I piled mounds and mounds of the goodness on top of a bed of kale, praying that it tasted as good as it looked.
Newsflash: it was amazing! But as any Whole Foods salad bar visitor knows, it ain’t cheap. Luckily I snapped a photo of the ingredients so that I could remake it at home. This has quickly become one of my favorite homemade recipes. It’s easy and you can make a huge portion, lasting for a few meals. Even after eating it 3 days in a row, I’m still excited for my lunch (it’s that good).
What’s also great about this recipe is that you can adjust it to your liking. Below are the proportions I make it with, but feel free to change it to your liking. If you like more spice, add more hot sauce. If you love the crunch of celery, add and add. You can’t go wrong! Here we go:
Ingredients:
- 3 lbs raw chicken breasts
- 3-4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes
- ½ red onion
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 5 stalks green onion
- 1 celery bunch
- ½ tablespoon Olive oil
- Lemon juice from 2 lemons
- Franks Hot Sauce
- Onion Powder
- Garlic Powder
What To Do:
First we’re going to make the shredded chicken. Add your chicken breasts to a crock pot and pour in the broth until the meat is covered. Cook this on high for 4-5 hours or low for 7-8 hours. After that time, take two forks and shred the chicken (if cooked long enough this will be very easy). Remove the chicken and place in a large bowl (try to do this without transferring the broth to the bowl, but it’s okay if some comes over with the chicken). Set this aside to cool.
While the chicken is cooling, chop up all of the veggies and herbs (tomatoes, red onion, green onion, parsley, celery) and place in a bowl.
[my sous chef is totally sleeping on the job]
Next take the olive oil, lemon juice, hot sauce, onion powder and garlic powder and mix it in with the chicken. You can use regular olive oil, or you can use this olive oil + lemon mixture from Trader Joe’s.
I used this but also used the juice of 2 lemons. The hot sauce, onion and garlic powder quantity is totally up to you. For hot sauce I kept pouring it on until I felt like it was borderline enough, then did a light sprinkling of onion and garlic powder. Always good to use less than you think you need at this point to make sure you don’t go overboard on any one ingredient. Mix until all of the ingredients are well incorporated into the chicken. Now’s a good time to do a taste test and see if you want more of anything (I tend to add more hot sauce for extra kick).
Next, add in all of the chopped veggies and herbs and mix with the chicken. That’s it! You’re all set with a seriously delicious chicken salad. Just look at how much this made!
[approx enough for 5 meals for me]
I like to have mine on top of a bed of massaged kale. For that, I put a bunch of kale in a large ziplock bag, add some olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Then I mix around the ingredients with the bag zipped. Really get in there and massage the kale, it takes away some of the bitterness. You can do this in a bowl with your hands but I prefer the clean version in the bag. If you plan ahead, you can let this soak in the fridge for a few hours to break down the kale even more (but can also eat right after mixing too!).
