Chipotle Chicken Salad

tl;dr;

This offering from eMeals can be a great go-to lunch recipe when you want something quick and with high protein macros. You can present this recipe in many ways. Typically, I like chicken salad with club crackers, but the heat and spice were too much for me and my Takis-loving daughter. So, I had to double the recipe by adding another can of chicken and mayonaisse. We ended up making these into quesadillas.

Overall Impression

I track my macros every day. Each day, the composition of carbs, protein, and fat changes. When I need a high-protein meal, I tend to reach for cans of chicken or tuna. I found this Chicken Chipotle Salad recipe from eMeals' Paleo Lunch Plan today. The kids were around today, so this would be a great choice, as I could offer it in many ways. Sammy loves her carbs, so she'd eat it with crackers. Bridget loves spicy food, so she'd eat it with Takis.

My taste testers' initial reaction was, "Whoa, that's spicy." And that's coming from my Takis-loving kids. The heat took a moment, but it hit the back of my tongue. This is why we gave this recipe a 3-star rating. There was no warning how hot and spicey this dish would be.

Because it was still a bit spicy—it is "chipotle," isn't it?—I decided to make quesadillas. I added a bit of Kirkland 3-Cheese Mexican Blend to a couple of tortillas and served them with lime sauce and sour cream.

Preparation

The ingredient list is basic, especially for a Paleo eater.

First up are the 2 bone-in, skinless chicken breasts. I have these but needed to make a quicker lunch dish for a hot summer day. This is when I typically grab a can of meat. My substitute is the 12.5-ounce Kirkland Chunk Chicken Breast can. Easy-peasy.

I do not have avocado-based oils. I'm switching from seed oils to refined (read: tasteless) avocado and coconut oils. I have recently used my last can of Pam spray. I am now using Chosen Foods 100% Pure Avocado Oil Spray (naturally refined, neutral taste 500º smoke point) that I picked up at Costo. I'm waiting to run out of my big jar of Costco Canola oil. I'd love any suggestions on what to replace that with. Comment below.

So, the following ingredients are avocado oil and avocado oil mayonnaise ($10 a jar at Costco...ouch. I do like my Hellmann's Light Mayo). The lime juice came from a jar. Now, maybe this is where I went wrong with my substitution—instead of ground chipotle chile pepper, I used my closest spice—ground cayenne pepper—and ground garlic powder.

The recipe then asks for thinly sliced celery, minced red bell pepper, and sliced green onions, of which I have some growing in my containers.

I mixed all the ingredients into a bowl before adding them to the chicken. Mistake #2: I think I still need to taste it at this point. Had I noticed the amount of heat, I would have diluted the sauce there instead of doing it with another can of chicken breast.

And here I'm controlling how much celery and red bell pepper gets added.

Next Time

I will prepare this again and be very careful about how much spice I put into it. The flavor is very nice overall. I look forward to having this with club crackers.