Ideas for Leftover Roasted Chicken

After cooking the full chicken the other night, Blake and I had plenty of leftovers.  I am usually not a fan of leftovers unless it's pizza or Chinese food.  However, we had lots of chicken, and although Izzy was willing to eat most of it, I couldn't allow that to happen.  So, instead of wasting it, I decided to make a few salads with it for lunch for the past couple of days.  Salads are not only delicious but also very easy to make. The two salad ideas I came up with is a Cobb salad and a BBQ chicken salad. 

First, we have the Cobb salad.  This type of salad usually consists of egg, bacon, tomatoes, onion, chicken and blue cheese dressing.  I didn't have any tomatoes, so I subbed yellow and red peppers instead.  I also like to put blue cheese crumbles and use a vinaigrette dressing instead.  It seems a bit lighter than using heavy blue cheese dressing, but you get that great flavor from the crumbles still.  If you don't like something, leave it off or sub it for something else.  That's what is great about making your own food, you can add or           subtract anything you want.  That's also why I make my own salad dressings, because I know exactly what I'm putting into it.

The second salad I made was a BBQ chicken salad.  Back in the day, when I first starting working, I had a job at Bob Evans.  Yep, we allllll have to start at the bottom! When I worked there they had just come out with the Wildfire Chicken Salad.  I thought it sounded disgusting.  BBQ sauce on salad???? BLAH!

That was until I took my first bite.  We've been in love ever since.  It is now one of my favorite salads, and I see it adapted at many different restaruants (never as good).  This is basically a "what do I have in my fridge salad?" I literally make this when I know I need to get rid of veggies.  In the one I made for lunch today, I used the rest of a yellow pepper, onion, egg, and bacon.  I like to heat the chicken up in the microwave with the BBQ sauce.  Heating up the BBQ sauce too makes it easy to pour and stir in the salad.  I like this salad, and only this salad, with ranch dressing.

This salad goes against everything I just stated in the Cobb salad.  I use pre-made BBQ and pre-made ranch dressing.  It's just easier and I really can't make any BBQ that is as good as Sweet Baby Rays.  I promise a BBQ salad will change your life, so get on cooking and try it!