Monday, June 15, 2009

Caesar pasta salad with chicken and homemade ciabatta croutons

This is so delicous...just thought I'd share with you all.

Prep:
For chicken:
1-2 chicken breasts
1 egg, yolk broken
1/2 c. AP flour
salt, pepper to taste
olive oil/Enova/canola oil for cooking in pan

Defrost and slice one or two chicken breasts into 2 inch chunks (or smaller). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Dip in egg and coat with AP flour.
Warm up oil over medium heat and place chicken pieces in one at a time. Cook on both sides until browned and cooked through. Remove to plate.

For croutons:
Cut into 1 inch chunks either ciabatta bread that has been thick sliced or ciabatta rolls (I used the Take N' Bake rolls from HyVee/Target).
Brush olive oil onto chunks generously and place on baking sheet.
Oven at 400, cook for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle with a little garlic salt (or leave plain if you'd rather). Store in airtight container (trust me, these won't last long once you taste them...I was eating them plain all afternoon).

Cook farfalle pasta according to directions, drain and rinse with cold water.

Stop eating the croutons now or there won't be any left for the actual salad!

Assembly:
In large bowl, place cooked pasta, 1/2 cup Brianna's Asiago Caesar dressing (or your favorite kind), a couple spoonfuls of shredded parmesan (I got a little container at Hyvee pre-shredded) and chicken chunks. Stir to distribute dressing.

Cut up pieces of romaine lettuce and add to bowl. Cut croutons if they are too large and toss into bowl. Stir to combine. Sprinkle with extra cheese if you like and dig in!

Hope you like it!

PS: I made this just for me (Carter wouldn't eat this if I coated it in chocolate) since I'm by myself and ended up only using a few noodles, a half heart of romaine, 3 chunks of chicken, a teeny bit of cheese and a couple tablespoons of salad dressing. And tons of croutons. I'll just make up another salad with the leftover stuff tomorrow. You can do this for however many you like, just up the ingredient amounts for what you need.

1 comment:

Beth said...

ooh! this looks YUMMY!