Cake, Batter, and Bowl

Chicken and Soba Romaine Salad with Thai Vinaigrette

Main Dishes

If you happened to peek in my fridge last weekend, you would have known I was on a sugar high. Imagine tins of cupcakes and bowls of custard and ganache precariously balancing on trays of brownies, cheesecakes, and tarts. I’ve been hard at work creating recipes for the Pillsbury Bake-Off and have been devoting all my efforts to my strongest category – desserts! I’m having a blast dreaming up new treats, and although I don’t think I’ll get through my entire list of ideas before the recipes are due April 18, I’m definitely doing my best! I often find that when I’ve been overindulging my sweet tooth that I actually start craving more healthy meals than usual. Enter this salad.

It was inspired by a salad I had at an airport. Yep, an airport salad, that had a delicious Thai sweet chili dressing. I mixed romaine lettuce with red peppers and cucumbers and topped them with sesame soba noodles (since I’m now convinced all salads need some carbs), chicken, and peanuts. The vinaigrette, which contained sweet chili sauce from Trader Joe’s, canola oil, rice vinegar, and a touch of soy sauce, pulled it all together. This is definitely my favorite plate of greens on my blog so far! Ok, off to work on my next Bake-Off entry!

Chicken and Soba Romaine Salad with Thai Vinaigrette
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Soba Noodles:
8 ounces soba noodles
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Thai Vinaigrette:
1/2 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

For Assembly:
3 hearts of romaine lettuce (24 ounces), cut into bite sized pieces
2 red peppers, chopped
1 English cucumber, sliced
2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into bite sized strips
1/2 cup salted peanuts

Directions:
Prepare soba noodles according to package directions, drain, and rinse with cold water. Place noodles in a large bowl and mix in soy sauce and sesame oil. Whisk sweet chili sauce, canola oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce in a small bowl to make the vinaigrette. To serve, mix romaine lettuce with red pepper and cucumber slices. Distribute greens on four plates and evenly top with soba noodles, chicken, and peanuts. Drizzle on desired amount of vinaigrette. Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition: 681 calories, 29.2g fat, 4.7g fiber, 43.1g protein per serving
Cost: $2.99 per serving

Basil Quinoa with Chicken, Eggplant, Zucchini, and Sun Dried Tomatoes

Apolinaras has quite the green thumb. Our apartment has a Juliet balcony, which is basically a huge sliding glass door that opens to umm, the bars of the balcony like this one. So as you can imagine, there's really not much room for plants, but Apolinaras is quite the...

Orange Roasted Chicken

Time for part 2 of our New Zealand adventure (you can check out part 1 here)! After visiting Rotorua, we drove down to see Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, which fills a caldera created by a huge volcanic eruption, and the Huka Waterfalls. Taupo is a...

Blackened Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Blue Cheese and Bacon

Apolinaras is pretty spoiled in the culinary department.  Last weekend I made a bunch of tofu fried rice for my weekday lunches, and also cooked up a separate batch of chicken breasts for him because he likes to loudly proclaim the fried rice is the worst dish I...

Avocado Crab Cakes with Crushed Plantain Chips

Dear disappointing Boston restaurant, My hubby and I can rarely resist ordering crab cakes when we eat out, and I was really looking forward to trying your twist on our favorite appetizer during our recent visit to your restaurant. So, you can imagine our...

Pancetta and Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken Breasts

We just got back from our annual lab ski trip, where stayed in a huge house up in New Hampshire and hit the slopes and snowshoeing trails at Mount Sunapee. We all had a great time relaxing, hanging out, and enjoying some incredible meals. Everyone signed up to make a...

Ancho Honey Chicken over Tropical Rice

My younger brother went through a phase when he was about five where he was obsessed with cantaloupe. I remember him easily downing four or five slices at a time, which I didn’t really understand since I was such a picky eater. In fact, I used to regularly make fun of...

Bacon and Mushroom Stuffed Chicken Breasts over Sweet Potato Hash

I’m always on the hunt for new chicken recipes and often times will just write “chicken” on my blog recipe idea list as motivation to dream up something new! Stuffed chicken is one of our favorites, and I especially love using a little mascarpone cheese in the filling...

Thai Burgers with Plum Sauce and Spicy Slaw

I’ve slowly been working on a few recipes to go with my recap posts about our amazing trip to New Zealand, but I haven’t even started to go through all our pictures. The task just seems too overwhelming...but today I have a little teaser post – Thai turkey burgers...