Even though salads are an all year round food for me when the sun is shining I do like to dig my fork into a big leafy salad. Now that there are hints of spring in the air I’ve become a bit obsessed with salads for lunch and dinner. Unless I’ve made a big batch up for the week there is rarely one salad that is the same as the other, which is why I love them so much.
I literally throw anything into my salads ranging from roasted vegetables, meat, fish, nuts and seeds. One of my favourite things about them is how easy they are to throw together, no fuss cooking or assembling is my kind of thing. When we had family over the other weekend I needed a quick and easy lunch for 5 that didn’t take hours to make. I had already roasted a chicken so the easiest thing that came to mind was a hearty satisfying salad full to the brim of lots of different nourishing ingredients.
- 4 cups rocket
- 2 cups precooked puy lentils
- 1 cup tinned petite pois
- 1 cup cooked edamame beans
- 1/4 cup radishes sliced
- 4 spring onions sliced
- 3 cups rice noodles
- 1 big bunch of coriander leaves
- 2 cooked chicken breasts sliced
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Wash and prepare the vegetables, roast the chicken breasts and cook the edamame beans and rice noodles by simply warming them through in the microwave.
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Allow the chicken breasts, edamame beans and rice noodles to cool.
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Mix the prepared vegetables into a bowl with the edamame beans, petite pois, puy lentils and rice noodles.
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Chop the coriander leaves and add to the vegetables with the rocket leaves.
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Stir the ingredients together making sure that they are evenly distributed and the noodles are not clumped together.
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Mix in the sliced chicken breast and top with your favourite salad dressing.
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Serve and enjoy!
To make this vegetarian you can omit the chicken. This salad would also work great as a side salad or as a main.
To make things easier, I bought ready-cooked puy lentils and tinned petite pois. I always find that edamame beans come in frozen bags in the supermarkets and to cook them I just warmed them through in the microwave for speed and it works really well.
We had this as a side salad with our roast chicken and potatoes for lunch and it easily went around 5 of us. Thankfully, there were leftovers too as it works great as a satisfying lunch with the chicken breasts shredded on top as in the photographs. Of course, to make this vegetarian you can take out the chicken and add even more lentils and beans.
I think this salad lends itself well to any meat or fish, it’s really versatile. In terms of salad dressings, you can go as simple or as fancy as you like because this salad can carry any flavour, the noodles act as a great vehicle for a healthy drizzle of dressing. Next time I think I might try making an oriental inspired dressing with honey, ginger and soy sauce or even a creamy avocado dressing, yum!
What ingredients do you like to add to your salads? Do you like to add noodles?
What is your favourite salad dressing?
That looks so good! I absolutely love a lot of greens in my salad and am always looking for new salad ideas, as I like to keep things fresh and new!
I’ll have to give this a try but I’m not a of lentils, so might omit that. I bet this would be good with a citrus dressing or even oil and balsamic vinegar. Yum!
Ree xx
#UKBloggers
Thanks, Mariyah! You could definitely omit the lentils and it would still taste great. Love the idea of the citrus salad dressing too. 🙂
I’ve never tried edamame beans in salads but will try to find some and give them a go. I love puy lentils. Can’t get enough of them!
They really taste great and I love the bright green colour that they add too.
Beautiful pictures Jemma, it looks so fresh and tasty! I’m such a fan of rocket too.
Thanks, Claire! I really like rocket too, lovely peppery flavour.
Looks delicious. I’m not a noodle-in-my-salad fan usually. I do like lentils and love love chicken.
My favourite dressing is Caesar, thick and creamy!
Hmmm Caesar salad dressing is pretty much the King of all dressings isn’t it!
looks delicious! I wouldnt know what to do with a radish and i think im quite a good cook, so its fun to find recipes that are unusual to me
Ha! I tend to just throw them into salads if I’m honest.
This looks so good – I love rice noodles! x
Thanks Lily, the noodles add a lovely texture.
I love throwing different things into my salads too, especially hard boiled eggs and avocado. Right now I’m really into this olive oil and vinegar dressing. Usually I love ranch, but I’m trying to kick the habit haha.
Vinegar and oil is such a simple dressing, but it really works. I like to add a squeeze of lemon to mine too.
I’m not really into vegetables that much so find it hard to eat salads most of the time, but my oh my, does your salad look right up my street and so yummy too. Will deffo have to give this a try!
Oh do let me know how you get on if you try this Louise. Hopefully it will convert you to like veggies more. 🙂
Oh I have a fridge full of radishes from my veg box so this looks like a good shout plus a whole lots of chicken – looks like it is salad time!
A salad is a great way to get rid of all of those radishes! 🙂
This sounds like a really delicious and flavorful combination!
Thanks Shannon. 🙂
This got me sitting up and drooling in my bed.
This looks great. I love the idea of adding all the filling beans and lentils. X
Laura | A Life With FrillsÂ
This looks yummy! I love adding home cooked hams and chedder cheeses to my salads. By adding home grown lettuce, tomatoes and herbs to salads makes it so much more satisfying xx
Yum! This looks delicious. This sounds like something I get in Pret quite often.
This salad and recipe look lovely – and healthy – I have already saved it to my files and can hardly wait to put it together! thank you 🙂