Situations where you need to quickly cook a tasty snack from inexpensive and affordable products are familiar to every hostess. Often the main ingredient in such dishes is chicken. It is cheaper than beef and pork, cooks much faster. At the same time, chicken does not have a high calorie content, which makes it attractive for people seeking to have a slim figure. Chicken meat is in harmony with various products, including vegetables. Many cooks prefer to combine it with tomatoes, the rich taste of which favorably emphasizes the delicate taste of poultry meat. They compensate for dry chicken breast with juicy pulp. Salads with chicken and tomatoes are in the culinary book of almost every hostess, and they often help her out.
Cooking Features
Salads with chicken and tomatoes chefs love not only for the harmonious taste, but also for ease of preparation. However, without knowledge of some subtleties, the culinary specialist’s work may not be crowned with the expected success.
- Frozen poultry is not the best choice if you plan to use it to make salad. Even if you let it thaw out under natural conditions, it will lose some of the liquid. Chicken in itself is not too fat and juicy, so this loss can be fatal: the chicken will become dry, hard, tasteless. When buying chicken for a salad, give preference to a fresh or chilled product.
- Salad may require smoked, fried, baked or boiled chicken. By preparing it incorrectly, at the exit you will get a less tasty snack than you expect. Bake the chicken in need of foil or a special package. When boiling it is desirable to lower it into already boiling water, add salt only 5 minutes before readiness. It will be even tastier if, before frying or baking, it is marinated, while cooking, add onion and spices to the broth.
- Tomatoes for salad are not suitable for everyone. Looking for vegetables with fleshy pulp. If you come across a juicy variety, after chopping, put the tomato pieces in a sieve and wait for the extra juice to drain.
- For chopping tomatoes, a blunt knife will not work at all. By pressing on the dense skin, you will squeeze the juice out of the vegetables, and it will remain intact. As a result, the pieces will be large and ugly. For tomatoes, special knives are produced, resembling a long, narrow saw with small and frequent teeth. With the help of such a knife you will cut tomatoes as quickly and accurately as possible.
- Using products that require heat treatment to prepare a salad, cool them before combining with other ingredients, otherwise the appetizer will quickly deteriorate.
- Salads with chicken and tomatoes can be regular or layered. Ordinary seasoned immediately before serving to the table, so that they remain fresh longer. Puff salads are collected in advance, at least a few hours before the upcoming feast, so that the products have time to soak in the sauce.
Tomatoes and chicken salads are very different, there is no uniform technology for their preparation. Using the above recommendations, you can cook a delicious salad according to any of the selected recipes.
Salad with smoked chicken, tomatoes, nuts and poppy
Composition:
- smoked chicken - 0.5 kg;
- baguette - 150 g;
- culinary poppy - 25 g;
- tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
- walnuts - 50 g;
- hard cheese - 100 g;
- vegetable oil - 20 ml;
- mayonnaise - how much will go.
Method of preparation:
- With smoked chicken, remove the skin, separate the meat from the bones and cut into small pieces, put on a dish. Pour a small amount of mayonnaise.
- Fry the nuts in a dry frying pan, fold them into a bag and crumble with a rolling pin for rolling dough.
- Sprinkle the chicken with nut crumbs.
- Wash and dry the tomatoes with a kitchen towel. Cut seals in the stalk area. Pulp cut into small cubes, lay the next layer. One tomato can be left for decoration - a flower made from it will look good in the center of the snack when it is served at the table.
- Pour tomato sauce.
- Finely rub the cheese, sprinkle on the salad.
- Using mayonnaise, make a snake on the surface of the salad. Sprinkle mayonnaise "snake" with poppy seeds.
- Cut bread at crusts, cut crumb into small cubes or slices. Brow in a pan greased with vegetable oil. Spread out on the surface of the salad, part of it laying in the center.
An appetizer made according to this recipe looks elegant and festive, has a harmonious taste. It’s hard to find someone who might not like this treat.
Layered salad with chicken, tomatoes, cheese and eggs
Composition:
- chicken breast - 0, 4 kg;
- tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
- hard cheese - 100 g;
- chicken egg - 3 pcs .;
- onions - 100 g;
- lemon - 1 pc .;
- salt, pepper - to taste;
- mayonnaise - how much will go.
Method of preparation:
- Boil water, dip the chicken breast into it and cook for 30 minutes. 5-10 minutes until tender, add salt, bay leaf and other spices. Cool the breast, peel off the skin. Chicken meat, separated from the bones, cut into small pieces.
- Place the hoop on the plate and place the chicken inside. Pepper, pour mayonnaise.
- Peel the onions, chop them finely.
- Squeeze the juice from the lemon, pour it on the onion. Leave to marinate for 15 minutes.
- Remove the onion from lemon juice, spread on the chicken.
- Boil chicken eggs, cool them by placing them under a stream of cold water. Free from the shell. Grind on a coarse grater. Put the next layer, grease with sauce.
- Cut the dried and dried tomatoes into small cubes, put them in a sieve. After 10 minutes, shift to eggs, pour with mayonnaise.
- Chop up the cheese on a coarse grater, sprinkle tomatoes on them.
To decorate the salad, you can use tomato circles and greens. The mayonnaise in this snack can be replaced with sour cream, mixed with a spoonful of lemon juice, salted and seasoned with pepper.
Salad with chicken, tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese
Composition:
- tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
- chicken breast fillet - 0, 2 kg;
- fresh champignons - 0, 3 kg;
- onions - 100 g;
- semi-hard cheese - 150 g;
- vegetable oil - 40 ml;
- mayonnaise - to taste;
- Spices for chicken, salt, pepper - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash and dry the chicken fillet. Rub a mixture of spices. Wrap in foil. Put on a baking sheet and send in the oven warmed to 200 degrees. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Cool and cut into small cubes. Put in a salad bowl. Brush with mayonnaise.
- Wash, blot champignons with a napkin. Cut them into plates.
- Free from peel and cut onion into thin half-rings.
- Heat the oil in a deep frying pan, put onions and mushrooms in it. Fry until the liquid released from the mushroom evaporates from the pan. Salt, pepper. When the mushrooms have cooled, transfer them to the chicken and grease with the sauce.
- Coarsely rub the cheese, put it on the mushrooms, cover with the sauce.
- Cut the tomatoes into oblong pieces, put them on top.
The taste of this salad will appeal to mushroom lovers, but not only them. Appetizer turns out very nourishing, juicy, appetizing looks. This salad is not necessary to make puff: chopped products can be folded in a bowl, season with mayonnaise and mix. It will only affect the appearance of the snack, but not to its taste.
Salad with chicken, dried tomatoes and cheese
Composition:
- chicken fillet - 0, 2 kg;
- dried tomatoes - 100 g;
- hard cheese - 100 g;
- lettuce leaves - 100 g;
- mustard table - 5 ml;
- lemon juice - 10 ml;
- olive oil - 80 ml;
- salt, spices - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Tear up the salad.
- Slice dried tomatoes.
- Coarsely grated cheese.
- Pound mustard with lemon juice, add two tablespoons of oil, whisk.
- Combine tomatoes, lettuce and cheese in a bowl, season with sauce, put on a dish.
- Chicken fillet cut into strips, fry, salt and pepper, put on a snack, without cooling.
This salad is served immediately after preparation. When the chicken cools, it will become less tasty.
How to decorate the salad with chicken and tomatoes
Salads with chicken and tomatoes are often prepared for the festive table, and then for the chef becomes an issue of registration of the finished dish. You can offer a few ideas how to decorate a similar snack.
- Tomatoes, being the main ingredient of the salad, can be successfully used to decorate it. Cut the tomato into thin slices, roll one of them into a tube, and lay the rest around it like petals. The result will be a figure resembling a flower. Cut the cherry tomato in half, make small holes on the convex side of the toothpick, insert small pieces of olives into them, attach a larger piece to one side of the tomato half. The figure will look like a ladybug. And the “flower” and “ladybird” can be put on a salad or on a plate next to it. Appetizer will get a bright and festive look.
- Flowers for decorating a salad can be made from other products that are part of it. Greenery for decoration is used regardless of whether it is included in the recipe.
- Red contrasts with green, and colorists consider this color combination to be successful. Having laid out a snack with tomatoes on lettuce leaves, you will make it much more appetizing and attractive.
When serving a portion of salad, it can be decomposed not into plates, but into cocktail glasses or ice cream bowls. This design will give the dish refinement.
Salads with chicken and tomatoes are tasty and satisfying. Their bright appearance makes such dishes the decoration of the table. A variety of recipes for snacks allows you to choose the option for almost every taste.
