Garlic and Honey-Marinated Avocado, Mango, Roasted Chicken Salad

Whenever I can, I try to cook these recipes for dinner guests (or I bring desserts to work) so that I can hear other people's perspective. There have been a number of things I've made that I really like but other people don't like (and things I didn't like that other people raved about). Fabio's garlic and honey-marinated avocado, mango, roasted chicken salad was, somewhat surprisingly, a hit. His recipe needed a little tweaking, in my opinion, as it was rather heavy on olive oil and honey but light on actual vegetables or mango.

Also, Fabio's recipe header specifies that this salad feeds four "for a lunch or light supper". I would argue that it wouldn't be enough on its own for four people with an appetite any time of day. Since I was serving it for dinner to a group of three, I added quinoa, more greens, and more mango to round it out a bit. We basically finished the entire salad, even with all those extras.

The other things about this recipe is it assumes you have leftover chicken meat (or that you bought a rotisserie chicken from the store for this salad). I had neither, so I poached some boneless, skinless chicken thighs over low heat in coconut milk (from a 15-oz can) plus the juice of one lime. This took about as much time (30-40 minutes) as it did for me to put the salad together.

Fabio's recipe calls for one orange, but the grocery store was totally out of oranges, so I bought a grapefruit instead. The substitution worked... but an orange would have been a lot better.

There's a lot more avocado in this garlic and honey-marinated avocado, mango, roasted chicken salad than there is chicken or mango! I added a little more mango and salad to balance things a bit (not that I don't love avocado).

Original source: Fabio's 30-Minute Italian

Garlic and Honey-Marinated Avocado, Mango, and Roasted Chicken Salad

This light and summer-y salad is a refreshing change from your standard house salad. Adapted slightly from Fabio's 30-Minute Italian. The timing on this salad assumes you have leftover chicken (or turkey) meat, however if you don't, you can easily make this salad in almost the same amount of time by just poaching some chicken breasts/thighs before you start the vegetable and fruit prep.

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Course: Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: American, Italian

Keyword: Easy summer salad, Fabio

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 0 people

Ingredients

• 2-3 tablespoons honey
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 ripe avocados
• 3-4 tablespoons fresh lime juice from about 3 limes
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 medium shallot
• ½ cup baby kale
• ½ cup baby spinach
• 1 cup mixed greens
• 2 ripe mangoes
• 1 large orange
• 1 cup roasted chicken meat* shredded
• ⅔ cup quinoa rinsed
• salt and pepper

Instructions

• Add the rinsed quinoa to a medium saucepan together with 1 ⅓ cups water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 12-15 minutes, until cooked.
  
• Pit and cube the avocado, then grate or press the garlic. Toss together two tablespoons of honey, grated garlic, and avocado chunks.
• Peel, pit, and dice the mangos. Cut the orange in half horizontally and segment it, taking care not to leave any pith behind on the slices you'll be eating. Finely mince the shallot. Squeeze the limes to get about 3 tablespoons (or a little more) or lime juice.
  
• Whisk together the lime juice and olive oil, and toss together with the kale, spinach, mixed greens, quinoa, chicken, mango chunks, orange segments, and minced shallot in a large bowl. Add the marinated avocado pieces, season with Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, then toss to combine.
  

Notes

If you feel the salad is missing a little sweetness, add the remaining tablespoon of honey. If you feel it's missing tartness, add another tablespoon of lime juice. If you feel it needs more dressing, add another tablespoon of olive oil.