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Change up your usual salad game with this spicy and sweet Tropical Sriracha Chicken Salad. It’s packed full of veggies and flavor with an added boost of protein from the Sriracha-Pineapple Marinated chicken breast.
Are you someone who thinks that all salads are boring? Not filling enough? Not enough flavor? I 100% used to be in that camp… but probably because I just ate boring kale salads with balsamic vinegar dressing. Not anymore! As you can tell from a quick search for “salad” on my blog, you know I’m a total salad fan. I now know how to make a filling, satisfying, delicious salad. Like this Tropical Sriracha Chicken Salad.
The chicken is marinated in a sriracha-pineapple mixture and the salad dressing has even more kick with additional sriracha and lots of lime juice! The avocado won’t brown thanks to all of that lime juice but don’t worry, the fresh pineapple helps to cut some of the sourness. It was surprisingly easy to make and it’s packed-full of vegetables.
Tropical Sriracha Chicken Marinade
If you aren’t marinating your meat before cooking it, you’re missing out. This tropical spicy marinade makes the chicken the star of the show. Here’s what you need:
- Fresh pineapple – adds a subtle sweetness and actually helps tenderize the meat.
- Balsamic vinegar – also helps tenderize the meat and adds a delicious flavor.
- Raw Honey – a natural sweetener to balance the marinade.
- Sriracha sauce – to add a little spice!
- Garlic clove – the perfect flavor pairing.
- Lime juice – adds a delicious tropical flavor to the marinade.
- Salt and pepper – to bring all of the flavors together!
Put all of the marinade ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Put the chicken breasts in a shallow dish or plastic bag and coat with the marinate. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Prepping a Salad in Advance
For the longest time, I didn’t know how to prep a salad in advance. If you make a salad as usual and add the dressing, it gets all soggy. If you prep the salad but leave off the dressing, it’s always a pain to mix in the dressing when you’re out and about. Not anymore! Enter: mason jar salads. The key to making mason jar salads is the order that you layer the ingredients.
LAYER 1: Divide the dressing evenly between two large mason jars. Put the dressing at the bottom of the jar to make sure it doesn’t change the consistency of the rest of the ingredients.
LAYER 2: Cubed avocado. The dressing will keep it from browning and it won’t get soggy!
LAYER 3: Add the chicken, cherry tomatoes and pineapple to each jar.
LAYER 4: Top each jar with several handfuls of spinach. Secure with a lid and store in the fridge until you’re ready to enjoy.
When it’s time to eat, simply shake up the ingredients together and pour the contents of the jar into a bowl to eat.
Tropical Sriracha Chicken Salad
Change up your usual salad game with this spicy and sweet Tropical Sriracha Chicken Salad. It’s packed full of veggies and flavor with an added boost of protein from the Sriracha-Pineapple Marinated chicken breast.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
- Category: Salad
- Method: Grill
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
Chicken Marinade:
- 1/2 cup fresh pineapple chunks
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp honey
- 2 tbsp Sriracha sauce
- 1 garlic clove
- juice from 1 lime
- 2 large chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
- salt and pepper
For the Dressing:
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp Sriracha sauce
- 1 tbsp raw honey
- zest and juice, 1 lime
- 1 tbsp finely minced shallot
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
For The Salad:
- 1 avocado, cubed
- 1/2 cup diced red onion
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
- several handfuls of baby spinach
Instructions
- Place marinade ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
- Coat chicken in marinade and let sit in fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Heat up a grill pan to medium-high heat (or use a BBQ) and cook on each side for 5-7 minutes or until center is no longer pink and juices run cool. Set aside for 5-10 minutes to cool.
- Once cool, cut chicken into chunks.
- Mix together dressing ingredients in a bowl or mason jar.
- Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in chopped chicken.
- Top with desired amount of dressing and serve immediately.
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Hmm these look delicious, thanks for posting up this recipe, looks quite simple to make.
Simon
Oh dear lord, this salad was so delicious, just made it this morning together with my boyfriend. We both loved it! Amazing, I gave it a link through my small blog 😉 Will definitely keep checking your blog out in the future, great recipe, thanks for sharing!
So happy to hear that! My bf loved it too. Thanks so much 🙂
Sriracha + pineapple sounds like a match made on heaven to me. Can’t wait to try it!
Wow – these all look awesome!! I still haven’t done the salad in a jar yet – not sure why.
I love the tropical twist in your salad. Sweet meets heat. It’s what happens when pineapple and sriracha mate.
My issue with salads in a jar is that’s once you squeeze in all the toppings, there’s no room left for lettuce or at least not the quantity I’d like to consume. I’d need salad in pitcher to be satiated. 😉
I have never made a salad in a mason jar, but I LOVE to eat/drink my smoothies out of mason jars. They just look prettier and are more fun to eat…Who knows why the heck it does, but hey I am just going to roll with it, because it makes me happy to drink my green smoothies out of them! 🙂
I love Sriracha! Mmm, all these salads look great!
This looks so good! Very creative too. Pineapple and sriracha sounds pretty amazing!
I store my salads in a jar, but don’t eat them out of the jar. 🙂 I’ve been prepping salads in a jar for a few years, and it really is helpful to have a fresh salad ready to go (well, ready to dump onto a plate…) at lunch time.
Your salad looks incredible. Love all the flavors you’ve got going on!