Greek Grilled Chicken Salad

I love salads that use lots of dressing with mayo or Miracle Whip--potato salad, tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, ham salad...mmmmmm.

This is a much lighter chicken salad that uses Greek yogurt for the base of the dressing--which, I've decided, actually tastes better than the heavier versions we grew up with.

I found this Greek grilled chicken salad recipe at How Sweet It Is, a not-always-healthy-but-definitely-always-delicious-looking foodie blog. I love to drool over many of her concoctions and am interested in a lot of her combinations of foods that I'd never have thought to try (dark chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate ganache and candied bacon on top!?? What??). But some of her recipes are pretty do-able for someone watching what they're eating.

I didn't include a lot of pictures this time because, honestly, her pictures on the blog are fantastic. I also didn't make many changes--the only thing I did was omit the onions, just because we hate red onion and I couldn't find any Vidalia onions. I didn't want to use regular yellow or white onions, either, because I didn't want them to overpower the other flavors in this dish.

This recipe makes 2-4 servings (depending on your serving sizes, of course). This was a great dinner to have on a warm evening--it didn't heat up the kitchen, and the yogurt, lemon juice, tomato, and cucumber made for a cool, light, tasty summer meal.

Greek Grilled Chicken Salad
Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 cup chopped tomato
3/4 cup chopped cucumber
1/4 cup feta
for chicken marinade:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt & pepper
for quick tzatziki
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons chopped cucumber
1 teaspoon fresh dill
salt and pepper, if desired

30 minutes to 2 hours before servings, season chicken with salt and pepper. Place in a ziplock bag or baking dish and cover with the marinade ingredients (oil, lemon, zest, garlic) and marinate. While chicken is marinating, combine the tzatziki ingredients (yogurt, oil, lemon, cucumber, garlic and dill) in a bowl and mix. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside or back in the fridge until ready to use.
Once chicken is ready to cook, heat the grill (or a grill pan) to medium-high heat and grill chicken about 5-6 minutes per side. Set aside and let cool, then cut into chunks. In a large bowl, combine cucumber, tomato, onion and chicken. Add in feta. To bring the salad together, add the tzatziki in 2 tablespoon increments. I used about 3 tablespoons total, but feel free to add as much as you’d like. Just continue to mix until the salad comes together. Serve on toast or in pitas.

I had mine in a whole wheat pita, with about 2oz off steamed broccoli (only 2oz instead of my normal 4oz because I had been munching on broccoli and carrots with hummus while Ben grilled the chicken), using those nifty Ziploc Zip’n Steam bags I had written about a while back.  :)