So when I was getting all of the ingredients ready for this salad, I realize that I also had all of the ingredients to make my own balsamic vinaigrette.
This was pretty nice, considering all of the extra sugars and sodium salad dressings from the store have, and when do you just have all of the ingredients needed for something just sitting in your kitchen? First time it’s ever happened to me!
Let’s start with the salad.
What you will need (makes enough for 4 servings): 3-4 chicken breasts, 2 bags baby spinach, dried cranberries, walnuts, small package of semisoft goat cheese, and sliced beets. You can put basically anything on this salad that you want–I added sliced avocado on my salad, but the recipe did not originally call for it.
What to do:
1. Put oil and ground pepper on chicken, put on grill until no pink on the inside. Approximately 10-15 minutes.
2. Rinse baby spinach, slice beets, avocado and cheese, sprinkle walnuts and cranberries over baby spinach.
3. Top salad with chicken.
Now to the balsamic vinaigrette, which turned out to be just as easy (and much less time consuming).
What you need: 3 tbsp white or dark balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup oil, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1.5 tbsp warm water, ½ tsp minced garlic, ½ tsp freshly ground pepper, ½ tsp salt.
What to do:
1. Whisk vinegar, Dijon mustard, water, salt, pepper and garlic together.
2. While continuously whisking the mixture, slowly add the oil until emulsified.
This made about 2 servings, although I probably used more than a serving size.
Thanks to Women’s Health Magazine for the salad recipe and Redbook Magazine for the dressing recipe.