Greek Marinated Chicken Salad with Grapes and Butternut

I was in Los Angeles back in April for a wellness conference. While there I had the opportunity to eat at one of their new food concepts; a “Modern Cafeteria Style” eatery called Lemonade. I had actually received their cookbook from the University of Southern California, who had paid our school (OSU) a visit back in February. They sent us each a copy of the Lemonade cookbook. I’d briefly glanced at it but didn’t learn to appreciate it until after experiencing the place for myself.The first recipe I tried was this chicken salad with grapes and butternut squash. I quickly learned that their recipes are the complete opposite of what I typically like; ie: they are long and tedious! I tried hard to cut corners with this recipe but there were still a lot of steps (the recipe below is a modified, shortened version of the actual recipe. You’re welcome). In the end, it was worth it.

Greek Marinated Chicken Salad with Grapes and Butternut

Ingredients

• 1 cup non-fat Greek yogurt **
• 2 Tbsp dried oregano
• 1 onion, grated **
• 4 garlic cloves, minced **
• Juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes
• ½ Cup + 2 Tbsp. olive oil, separated
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
• 5 cups precut butternut squash cubes **
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp. honey **
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup red grapes, halved
• ¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
• ¼ cup slivered almonds **

Instructions

1. The day before you want to serve this dish, mix the first 8 ingredients (only 1 Tbsp of the olive oil) with a whisk in a medium bowl. Pour the mixture into a plastic bag and add the chicken. Zip the bag and place in the fridge for at least 24-hours.
2. Either the day before or the day of serving this dish, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the squash on a large baking sheet and drizzle with about 1 Tbsp of the olive oil and roast until nice and tender (~15 minutes). Take out the squash and allow to cool before using in the salad.
3. Either the day before or the day of serving this dish, make the vinaigrette. Do this by combining the vinegar, ½ cup olive oil, lemon juice, honey and salt and pepper to taste in a medium bowl and whisking until well combined.
4. Once the chicken has marinated for at least 24-hours, take out and cook on a grill or grill pan for ~10 minutes on each side (cook to 160 degrees). Take off grill, allow to cool and then cut into ~1-inch cubes.
5. In a nice serving dish, once ready to serve, combine the cooked squash, the chicken, the grapes, the parsley, the almonds and the vinaigrette, mix well and serve!

Notes

** If following a low FODMAPs diet, you can modify this to be lower FODMAPs. Do not use garlic or onion in the chicken marinade, but instead using a garlic-infused olive oil and omit the garlic and onion. If you are really lactose intolerant this is not the best dish, but most people who are lactose intolerant can handle about 12 g of lactose in a sitting, and therefore this dish would be a safe choice. Next, butternut squash contains FODMAPs but not at amounts of ¼ cup or less. You can reduce the amount of butternut used in the recipe, or simply serve yourself less butternut squash when making your own plate. Next, omit the honey or replace with maple syrup. Lastly, the amount of almonds in this dish shouldn’t be cause for concern (they only contain significant FODMAPs if consumed in amounts of 10 or more).

Nutrition Information

Serving size: ~1/4 of recipe Calories: 500 Fat: 26g Carbohydrates: 35g Fiber: 5g Protein: 37gI made this for a dinner event I attended and didn’t really know how to serve it. I thought about it and there are plenty of ways this could have been served; on top of spinach, romaine, even pasta! Of course you could also eat it without anything, just serve as is. I bought some hearty pita bread and served it wrapped in the pita (it would also work well in whole grain pita pockets).See you next week with a triple chocolate mousse recipe. It’s one of those recipes that tastes like it took hours to make, but was so easy even a kitchen novice could make it! And yes, it was from the Lemonade Cookbook. They do have some simple recipes after all!