Hearty Chicken Salad Recipe

Better brings you a new spin on what to do with those boring leftovers.

Hearty Chicken Salad Recipe Host: Well nothing quite satisfies the tummy more than a perfectly roasted chicken for dinner and sometimes there’s more than enough for days of left over, but left over don’t have to be boring. Now lucky for you we’re making life a little bit easier, we found Mindy Fox, she’s the author of “The Bird in the Oven and then Some” and she’s in the kitchen to show us how left over can still be very tasty. Mindy Fox: There’s nothing better than roast chicken, it’s a classic dish that’s great for cozy Sunday family meals, kids love it and it’s elegant enough for entertaining and the best part about it is it’s one of the easiest dishes to make. And there’s nothing I love better than a whole roast chicken than to use the meat and other dishes like soups, salads, pastas, main courses and more. Today we start out with mushrooms that we’re roasting in this hot skillet, you take your skillet very hot. Now these mushrooms look like they came out of the oven and maybe roasted for 20 minutes or more but this happened in the pan in just a few minutes. The trick is that your pan, that your skillet is very, very hot, use a little extra virgin olive oil, put the mushrooms in and don’t fuzz with them. After this, off the heat, we’re going to add a little fresh garlic, the heat of the pan is going to cook the garlic and that way the garlic stays nice and sweet. It doesn’t get bitter like some turns when the pan is too hot and you might burn your garlic a little bit. It will keep cooking as you add your roast chicken that was shredded and this can come--the roast chicken can come from anywhere that you like to make it home, your favorite or one of the recipes from my new book. Also, some fresh herbs, these herbs are like pick up the dish, lift it up, there’s fresh mint, parsley and chives and you can use whatever herbs you like and a quaint way to use fresh herbs in an economical way is to grow them on your window sill. We’re going to add this mixture right into our barley; barley is a nutty wholesome grain that is very easy to cook. You just boil it like pasta in a little bit of salted water. It’s full of fiber and great source of D vitamins and you can use other grains too if you like other grains, furrow, other whole grains. You want to season that up nicely with some salt and pepper. Over here I have Aruba left, you can use any grain you like, baby spinach works with this, any green, and whatever is fresh at the market that day. A little red wine vinegar and some olive oil, I’m actually going to put some olive oil in the bowl with the barley, make it really nice and moist and so you have two components of your dish. This is a very hearty salad, it’s great for cold weather, it’s wonderful because it’s so feeling and this salad really makes a meal. So for you, you just put it in the bowl, you put your Aruba down, your barley then your mushrooms. You can see those beautiful crispy golden mushrooms. They smell so good at the center of the garlic and there you go, at the end, finish it off with a little sprits of fresh lemon juice. That really picks up the earthy tones of the mushrooms and the barley and there you have it. A great salad that’s perfect for week nights, healthy and very filling. Host: I’m hungry now, but if you’d like to try this salad tonight, you can head to betterTV.com and then click on the recipe tab. And Mindy says that you can turn her chicken recipes easily into leftover turkey recipes after thanksgiving, so check out her book. “A Bird in the Oven and then some”, it’s available at bookstores everywhere.