Today is Day One of my attempt at clean eating. Now, I usually tend to eat healthy—lots of veggies, protein, fruits—however, I also load up on the carbs and I love salty things 🙂 If I don’t get my breakfast in, then I find myself craving some white rice and eat more than is needed to curb the hunger and the craving. Not so good, right? In fact, it is a vicious cycle and one that is hard to break: skip breakfast, blood sugar levels yo-yo, eat carbs, turns that into sugar, body stores fat, and you start all over again. Since my gym membership has been calling my name for the last three months and I have seen its doors maybe four times this year, I decided I needed to kickstart my dormant gym-rat status and start somewhere. Eating right. This recipe from Gimme Some Oven helps me do just that and it all comes together in less than 30 minutes! Check out Ali’s blog (one of my favorites) where she creates this and other fantastic recipes.
The thing I love about salads is they are versatile and you can come up with an infinite number of combinations. While my brain was constantly wondering why I was not just eating a bowl of rice, I thawed some chicken, marinated it, chopped up the lettuce and cabbage, shredded the carrots, prepared the vinaigrette, cooked the chicken and threw it all together in under 30 minutes!
INGREDIENTS:
SALAD
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
- salt and pepper
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 head Romaine lettuce, shredded
- 1 cup edamame (I did not have this and it was just fine.)
- 4 cups shredded red cabbage (I used green cabbage because that’s all I had.)
- 2/3 cup shredded carrots
- 1/2 cup chow mein noodles
- 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted
- sesame ginger vinaigrette
SESAME GINGER VINAIGRETTE
- 1/4 cup vegetable or olive oil
- 3 Tbsp. honey
- 2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
- 1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger
- 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tsp. sriracha chile sauce (optional) (This sauce takes the whole salad up a notch.)
- 1 tsp. sesame oil
- pinch of salt and pepper
DIRECTIONS:
THE VINAIGRETTE:
