Friday, August 6, 2010

Kebob Salad

Brad and I have decided that our house is the hottest place on earth.  Never have I lived in a house that got more hot or cooled down more slowly.  I realize this is a bit dramatic but every day we sit and sweat in our little house with no basement to retreat to.  The heat, combined with Brad being home a lot lately has led to me not wanting to be anywhere near the stove.  All of this led us to Kebob Salad.  I'm sure it's not unique, others have probably been doing it for years but it was our first time and it was a success so I'll share.



 Start with some chicken (I only used one of the three breasts) and cut it in to nice chunky cubes.


 Toss it in a ziplock bag with a good squeeze of caesar dressing and squish it up until it looks like the below.


Then throw it in the fridge for a while (a couple hours is best).

As it gets closer to dinner time get your veggies ready. 


We used a red pepper, half a green pepper, a chunk of red onion and you can see a bowl of frozen shrimp there too, I happened to have it in the freezer.  Let the shrimp defrost and cut everything else into chunks (not too small because you have to kebob them all, you'll be hating yourself later if they're too small).  I used lots of red onion this time because we decided it was our favorite part of the last salad.



Get them all on your skewers.  I used a combination of metal ones and wooden ones, soaking the wooden ones for a few minutes before I skewered.  A word about skewering your chicken.  We marinated in a creamy dressing so this is not going to be a clean job.  Just be in the moment and go for it, you can always wash after.


Give the veggies and shrimp a drizzle of olive oil and send your hubby out to the BBQ (I don't BBQ, that's a blue job).


While he's cooking wash and dry your lettuce (I use a salad spinner Brad gave me).


Here's what your skewers look like when they're ready to come off, all yummy and slightly charred.


One great thing about this salad... since you're going to take all the food off the skewers to serve you don't have to make them pretty, you can put all the onion on one stick, all the chicken on another and so on.  This means that you don't need to worry about the food cooking at different times, when the chicken is ready you can take it off and give the veggies more time if they need it.  Small hint, peppers always take longer to cook than you think they will.

Once everything is cooked and still hot slide them all of the sticks and onto your lettuce.


I'm pretty sure this next part is what makes the salad so yummy.  I used a squeeze of creamy poppyseed dressing on it all, it adds such a nice sweetness.  Make sure you don't use too much though, this stuff is strong so a little goes a long way.


See how you can barely see any dressing in the picture?  It's enough, really.


Here's one more picture of the salad all mixed and ready to eat.  Such a great dinner and since you use so little dressing it's great for you.  The caesar dressing really keeps the chicken moist and the two dressings work well together.  You can add any veggies you want, these are just the ones we love.


It's a perfect summer dinner so give it a shot!


Kebob Salad
1 Chicken Breast
1 Red Pepper
1/2 Green pepper
1/2 Red Onion
Handful of Shrimp
Caesar Dressing
Poppy seed Dressing
Head of Green Leaf Lettuce

4 comments:

Sharon@thisthriftyhouse said...

Yum Laura! What a great idea! And I LOVE the part where you called BBQ-ing a BLUE JOB!! You are so adorable! And I totally agree!

Mitz said...

BBQ-ing is totally a blue job in our house too. That sounds SO good!! Now I just need to go home to a BBQ to try it!

Jolayne said...

BBQing is a pink job in our house, but I don't mind 'cause I never have to mow the lawn!

We had kebob salad yesterday for dinner. We added pineapple and mushrooms. It was delish! Thanks for the idea!

Mandy said...

Look at you and all your yummy pictures. What a yummy salad idea. I will definitely have to try it.