Simple summer chicken salad

This simple chicken salad is ideal for a light supper in the garden on a sultry summer’s eve! Packed full of protein it’s a zero-carb dinner that will keep hunger at bay and cause minimum impact on your blood glucose levels.

There’s also plenty of veg involved too and so it’s a pretty good meal for ‘eating the rainbow’. Lots of fresh green salad leaves and herbs pack the meal full of fibre and deliver a nutritional hit whilst adding flavour. Red peppers are one of the best dietary sources of Vitamin C. Although they contain carbohydrates their fibre content helps slow the absorption into the body. Yellow courgette is a great source of Vitamin A and the skin of the vegetable is a rich source of antioxidants. Check out several more interesting health benefits of courgettes here, including some info on how it may help regulate blood sugar levels.

Ingredients - Serves 2, generously!

2 free range, organic chicken breasts
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 garlic clove
1 sprig of rosemary
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Juice and rind of ½ lemon
1 red pepper
8 cherry tomatoes
1 small yellow courgette
½ avocado
8 kalamata olives
Large handful of rocket, rinsed and dried
Large handful of other salad leaves, rinsed and dried
Small handful each of fresh basil, coriander, chives
Salad dressing: 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp cider vinegar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp mustard
Parmesan shavings, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 / 180 (fan oven) / Gas mark 6.
Make the marinade for the chicken: in a bowl combine 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil, the Dijon mustard, lemon juice and rind, and grind a little fresh pepper into it. Peel, crush and roughly chop the garlic clove and stir it in, squishing it into the side a little to release some flavour into the oil.
Make a foil parcel for the chicken in a roasting dish. Lay the breasts in the parcel and pour over the marinade. Cut the rosemary sprig in half and lay one on top of each breast. Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes depending on their size.
De-seed and slice the pepper into similarly sized strips, around 1.5cm wide. Add to a pre-heated roasting tin and cover with a little rapeseed oil, toss to coat and pop in the oven for 30 minutes. After 20 mins add the cherry tomatoes and little extra oil and roast together for the final 10 minutes.
Make the dressing: add the olive oil, cider vinegar and soy sauce to a salad bowl and stir together. Then add the mustard and mix together until it is combined into the other ingredients and season with a little salt and black pepper.
Rinse the courgette and remove the ends. Using a vegetable peeler, make thin ribbons. When no more ribbons can be made and your left with the ‘core’, slice the remaining courgette so none of it is wasted.
Slice the avocado and de-seed and halve the olives. Roughly chop the basil, coriander and chives.
Add the rocket, salad leaves and herbs to the dressing bowl and lightly toss. Then add the olives, avocado and courgette and toss again.
Remove the roast pepper and tomatoes from the oven and add to the salad bowl.
Remove the chicken breasts from the oven and slice into strips. Add to the salad mix.
Serve with some shavings of Parmesan.