Hey, This Salad Made Me Full!

Oh hey you guys. So now that it’s getting warmer, and we will start wearing tank tops and shorts, we need to start “eating salads” so we can be “beach ready” or whatever. A salad for lunch? No big deal! I get to eat again later. But a salad for DINNER? This can be difficult.

Don’t worry. It’s possible to make a fast, filling, healthy salad.  Here is one of those.

Full Salad Ingredients

• Lettuce, or spinach, or a “spring mix” thing, which I used. Like 3 or 4 oz (you know, put a handful in each bowl).
• 1 asparagus bunch (or another green veggie you enjoy roasted)
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 piece of chicken breast, about 6oz
• oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing
• salt and pepper 4 life

Here are the ingredients (in order of appearance):

So first things first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While that’s happening, poke holes in the sweet potato with a knife and put it in the microwave for 5 or 6 minutes, flipping over halfway through. It took me over a year to realize I didn’t need to roast a sweet potato for an hour and 45 minutes if I wanted to eat it. Technology!

While that’s in the microwave, let’s get the chicken ready. First, spray some nonstick spray on foil, lay the chicken in that foil, and sprinkle some salt and pepper on it. Like this!

Next you want to fold the foil into a little pouch before it goes in the oven. Start by folding longways, and folding it together at the top.  Then fold the 2 sides in. Like this!

Okay so by now your oven is preheated. Put the foil pouch in there on the top rack and set the timer for 5 minutes.

While that’s happening, place your asparagus on a baking sheet and cover it with olive oil, salt and pepper. When the timer is done, put them on the bottom rack. Now set the timer for 20 minutes (leave the chicken on the top rack, it should cook for 25 minutes total).

Whenever the sweet potato is done in the microwave, just throw it on the top rack with the chicken pouch. Might as well let it roast a little while everything else is.

NOW FOR THE HARD PART. Put the lettuce in a mixing bowl. Add about a tablespoon of oil, and a little less balsamic vinegar. Then get out your tongs and mix them (I always mix dressing into the lettuce first so there are NO DRY LEAVES, and it’s easier to mix more vigorously before you put all that other stuff in there). Your product will look like this:

So you probably have about 19 minutes left on the oven timer, so watch The Daily Show or something! Or you know, read. I don’t know.

When the oven timer goes off, take everything out. The chicken should look like this:

And your asparagus should look like this:

The sweet potato will look like a sweet potato.

Now you’ll need to cut up each of those things — chicken, asparagus, and sweet potato — into nice, bite-sized chunks, and put them into the bowl with the fully dressed lettuce.

If you’re weird, you can wait for it to cool, but I think it’s way better when it’s all still warm.

This will make 2 large salads, so mix it all up! The sweet potato will get sort of mushy throughout the salad, which makes it taste like a “hearty salad.” Here’s what your bowl will look like.

The whole process took 25 minutes and it’s DELICIOUS. Here’s why it’s the stuff you should put in your body:

1. Chicken breast. A VERY efficient source of protein.
2. Sweet potato. To me, this is what makes the salad filling. You’re only eating half a sweet potato, so you don’t have to get all weird about carbs, plus they are the nutritional shit. They’re high in Vitamin C, and calcium, and potassium, and beta-carotene, which converts into Vitamin A once it’s in your body. They’re also high in fiber, which we love, because you digest it more slowly, which means feeling fuller longer.
3. Asparagus. Any green vegetable is going to be good news, and for this one you get Vitamins K, B folate, and C, as well as fiber and potassium.
4. Olive oil. I’m Italian so I drink a glass of this for breakfast. It’s high in monounsaturated fats (the good one), and Vitamin E. Your hair and skin will look great, and you will give your body essential fatty acids. You’re welcome.
5. Spring mix. I mean, it’s lettuce, so I think the point is that you’re getting to eat things without it being real things, but apparently it’s also high in iron, Vitamin A and Vitamin C. So, there you go.

Anyway, there you have it. A salad to make and eat and be full.