Perfect Chicken Orange and Avocado Salad + Easy Dressing

Welcome friend! I'm glad that you are joining me today from beautiful Costa Rica. Since I'm visiting my son a little bit longer in Costa Rica, I'm really taking advantage of their fresh produce that they have here. They have incredible avocados, oranges, and of course cilantro. So today I'm going to be making for dinner chicken quinoa salad. It's a cold salad with avocado and orange. It has a really simple lime dressing that kind of makes it all come together. It's very fresh, light, and perfect for summertime. This recipe along with some of my other favorites you can find in my cookbook, The Calm Kitchen. I will leave the link in the description below. So we start with the quinoa, which is two parts water, one part quinoa. Quinoa can come in different colors. So today we are using red because that's what they had at the grocery store. Just enough. Perfect. And then to add a little bit more flavor, I just add some bouillon. You can use chicken or you can use veggie. So we are going to cover this, bring it to a boil, and then we're going to simmer for about 15 minutes. While this is starting to cook, we will get started on the chicken. So I've diced up the chicken into about one to two inch cubes, and then I'm just going to season it with some salt, some pepper, and a little bit of paprika. Stir it all together, and then it's ready to cook. Now I know what you guys are thinking, but Connie, you don't eat chicken. And that is correct, but everyone else in my family does. So aren't I a good wife and mom to still make chicken for everyone else? All right, so you're just going to get your pan and do a little bit drizzle of some olive oil, heat it up, and then cook the chicken until it's brown and crispy. All right, so the quinoa has been drained, rinsed. It's cool. Our chicken is done, and now we're ready to get to the oranges and avocado. With the oranges, you're just going to cut off both ends and then just peel, take off the peel like so. It's better to do it with a knife than your fingers because when you peel it by hand, the white stuff stays on there, the rind, and it can make it a little bit bitter. And then we're just going to cut it in half, take out any seeds in the middle that might be there, depending on what you got, and then we're just going to dice her up. So you want bite-sized pieces and put it in with the quinoa. And now it's time to do the avocado. So you just cut around like so, twist gently. Ah, look at that beautiful avocado. Love Costa Rica for that. And then I dice mine inside the peel because it's like a little bowl, makes it easy. So you just cut this way and then this way. And then the easiest way to get it out is to use your spoon and you just kind of go like that and it pops out and it's all ready to go into the bowl. So the last thing that goes into this before you do the salad dressing is the cilantro. I don't get fancy. I just chop it all up with the stems and all, but it's up to you. I think it's a personal preference. Some people don't like the stems. I'm totally fine with them. Just do a rough chop. Smells so good. And then you just put this in your bowl too. So now we're going to make salad dressing. When I first started making salad dressing from scratch about 15 years ago, I was amazed how easy it was. And I have never bought store-bought salad dressing since. So today we're using lime to add some citrus to it, a little bit of garlic for some depth, and we're going to make it sweet with honey. You're going to dice the garlic, mince it up nice and fine. The easiest way to juice a lime is to first roll it around with the palm of your hand. Then you just cut in half and squeeze it in the bowl. I add one heaping tablespoon of honey to make it sweet, two tablespoons of olive oil, a little bit of salt, and pepper. So you stir the dressing all together. If you have a whisk, even better. And then you just go ahead and put it into the quinoa salad. And then you just mix it around. I love how colorful this dish is. It's like eating a rainbow. And it's ready to eat. Now if you are a vegetarian like I am, this will be your dinner. If you are the rest of the family, you can top that with your chicken. I hope that you enjoy this dinner and that your family likes it too. Thank you so much for joining me today. Have a beautiful day, my friend.