Strawberry spinach salad with chicken
Golden seared chicken over tender spinach with sweet strawberries, toasted pecans, creamy goat cheese and a honey balsamic dressing.
- 30 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 2
- About $5.77 a serving
- 640 calories
- Gluten-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- ¼ cup pecans
- ¾ lb chicken breasts, about 2 small breasts
- 1 tsp honey
- ½ tsp Dijon mustard
- 1½ cups strawberries, sliced
- ¼ red onion, thinly sliced
- 5 oz baby spinach
- 2 oz goat cheese, crumbled
From your pantry
- ½ tsp salt, divided
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
- 1½ tbsp balsamic vinegar
Each serving has about 640 calories, 48 g protein, 21 g carbs and 41 g fat, and costs about $5.77 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No chicken breasts? Boneless chicken thighs or chicken tenderloins work.
- No honey? Maple syrup works.
- No red onions? White onions or yellow onions work.
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Toast the pecans in a large dry over medium for 3 minutes, shaking the pan, until they smell toasty. Tip them onto a plate.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
the chicken dry and both sides with most of the salt and the pepper.
Pat dry. Patting dry means pressing paper towels onto food to soak up the moisture on its surface. Wet food steams instead of browning, so this is how you get a good sear and crisp skin.
How you’ll know: The surface feels tacky, not wet, and the last paper towel comes away barely damp.
Season. Seasoning means adding salt, pepper or spices to bring out a food’s flavor. A little at a few stages tastes better than a lot all at the end.
How you’ll know: When you taste it, it tastes bright and like itself, not flat and not salty.
Food safety: Wash your hands, the board and the knife with hot soapy water after touching raw meat, and don’t rinse raw chicken in the sink.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in the over medium-high until it . Cook the chicken 5 to 6 minutes, without moving it, until underneath.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Shimmering oil. Oil shimmers when it’s hot enough to cook: its surface looks rippled and wavy, like heat over a road. That’s your cue to add the food, just before the oil would start to smoke.
How you’ll know: The oil looks wavy and runs thin like water when you tilt the pan, with no smoke yet.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium-high heatTimer: 5 min 30 sec
Flip, turn the heat to medium and cook 5 to 7 minutes more, until the thickest part reads 165°F. Let it 5 minutes.
Rest. Resting means letting cooked meat sit for a few minutes before you cut it. It keeps cooking gently, and more of the juice stays in the meat instead of running onto the board.
How you’ll know: Loosely covered with foil, it stays hot, and very little juice runs out when you slice it.
Medium heatTimer: 6 min
Dolly’s tip: Turning the heat down after the flip lets the middle cook through before the outside dries out.Food safety: Chicken and turkey are done at 165°F in the thickest part. A thermometer is the only sure check. Without one, cut into the thickest piece: it should be white all the way through, with no pink.
the rest of the oil with the balsamic, honey, mustard and the rest of the salt.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
the strawberries and the onion, then them with the spinach and most of the dressing.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Divide between 2 plates, the chicken over the top, and scatter the pecans and goat cheese. with the rest of the dressing.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
Dolly’s tip: Spinach wilts in dressing. For lunch, pack the dressing in a small jar and toss it at your desk.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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