Grilled Chicken Salad with Ranch & Raspberry Chipotle Dressing

This grilled chicken salad was a concoction made out of desperation over not having leftovers for three days in a row. I went through my mother's pantry, saw the Raspberry Chipotle barbecue sauce and remembered one of the salads that I had eaten at Chili's Restaurant once. That salad had plain barbecue sauce with Ranch dressing. I decided to test out my idea, and it came out a winner with my family.

Since I am not comfortable with barbecue grills, I cook my chicken in the sauce on the stovetop. What's great about this method is that I don't have to defrost the chicken first before I put it in the pan. You can also slow cook the chicken for that added tenderness.

TIP: If you can't find any raspberry chipotle barbecue sauce in your local grocery store, you can find plenty of recipes online. Some of them have quite a bit of kick, compared to the bottled brands.

Ingredients

1 large bag of pre-chopped lettuce

1 bottle of raspberry chipotle barbecue sauce

1 bottle Ranch dressing (divided)

1 bag of frozen chicken breasts or chicken tenders

1 box of cherry or grape tomatoes

1 bag grated Mexican-style cheese (optional)

1 red onion, sliced (optional)

Preparation

1. Coat the bottom of the pan with the barbecue sauce. Add 4-6 chicken breasts (or the whole bag of tenders). Pour about half of the barbecue sauce over the chicken, cover and cook on medium-high heat until the sauce begins to boil. Reduce the temperature to the low setting and cook until the chicken is tender. Slice the chicken up into strips and spoon onto a plate.
2. Dump the lettuce and tomatoes into a large bowl.

Building the Salad

From this point, you can either build the rest of the salad or let your guests/family build their own. To build it yourself, simply place the chicken on top of the lettuce mixture, drizzle the barbecue sauce over the chicken and top it off with Ranch dressing.

Serves 8 people

Variation: Substitute the raspberry barbecue sauce with plain barbecue and add sweet corn and crumbled bacon. I have tested this out, and it made for an excellent meal.