High Protein Chicken Club Salad
Looking for a mouthwatering salad recipe to satisfy your cravings? Try this gluten free, high protein Chicken Club Salad topped with a zesty and creamy balsamic salad dressing.
Save This Recipe!
Enter your email below & I’ll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you’ll get great new recipes every week!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Chicken Club Salad Ingredients
- Romaine lettuce
- Cooked bacon
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Avocado
- Cherry tomatoes
- Small red onion
- Cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Fresh parsley
- Green onions
Creamy Balsamic Vinaigrette Ingredients
- Balsamic vinegar
- Dijon mustard
- Garlic cloves
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Fresh lime juice
- Salt
- Black pepper
Ingredient Substitutions and Variations
If you don’t have all the ingredients on hand or need a substitution for something you like better, here are a few suggestions:
- Romaine lettuce. Substitute it for green leaf lettuce, kale, spring mix, butter lettuce, or whatever you prefer.
- Bacon. You can use turkey bacon as a lower-fat alternative.
- Chicken breast. Grilled chicken thighs or steak would be another delicious protein option. Or you can use a cooked rotisserie chicken from the store.
Equipment Needed
You won’t need anything special to make up this salad recipe. Here are some tools to get ready:
- Cutting board
- Chefs knife
- Mixing bowl for the salad dressing (or blender)
- Salad bowl
Meal Prep Tips
This salad is fast when you have the proteins cooked up in advance. So here are some meal prep tips so you can whip up this salad fast during the week (or portion it out in containers for taking with you to work).
- Make the creamy balsamic dressing and store it in a mason jar in the fridge. The salad dressing will keep for a week.
- Bake or grill the chicken breast. Let it rest, then slice it. Store in a container in the fridge.
- Boil the eggs, dunk them in an ice bath, peel the shells, and store them in the fridge.
- Cook the bacon, and store it in the refrigerator.
- Slice up the red onion (you can also make this pickled onions recipe for the salad).
Chicken Club Salad Nutrition Information
The simple salad is both gluten free and dairy free, which means it works for many different lifestyles.
Make it Vegetarian
If you would like a vegetarian option (no meat), leave out the chicken in bacon. You can find a plant based bacon option if you prefer.
Chicken Club Salad Macros
For 1/4 of this recipe, the macros for this recipe are roughly:
- 601 calories
- 31 grams of protein
- 15 grams of carbs
- 47 grams of fat
- 6 grams of fiber
You can lower the fat content and calories by substituting regular bacon for turkey bacon and using less avocado.
The macros are not 100% accurate as the weight of your chicken, the avocado, etc matters. You can adjust the portions and servings to help you reach your goals as you log it. Use this recipe as a blueprint.
More salad recipes
In addition to this chicken club salad recipe, here are a few of my favorite salad recipes:
Chicken Club Salad
Ingredients
Chicken Club Salad:
- 5 cups romaine lettuce chopped, rinsed and dried
- 6 slices bacon cooked and chopped
- 4 hard-boiled eggs sliced in half
- 1 large avocado sliced
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 small red onion sliced
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts cooked and chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped for garnish (optional)
- 2 tablespoons green onions chopped for garnish (optional)
Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing:
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 garlic cloves pressed or finely minced
- â…“ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Juice of ½ a lime roughly 1/4 cup
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Start by preparing and chopping all the salad ingredients and keep them aside.
- Next, take a medium-sized mixing bowl and whisk together the balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, garlic, olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper until the mixture becomes smooth and emulsified. Quick tip: toss all the ingredients in a blender or use an immersion blender.
- On a large serving plate (or a bowl) layer the romaine lettuce, bacon, cooked eggs, sliced avocado, cherry tomatoes, and red onion. Once you have layered them all, top the salad with the chopped chicken.
- Slowly pour the balsamic dressing over the salad, adding as much as you'd like. Top with parsley and green onions.
Notes
- crumbled blue cheese
- chickpeas
- cucumbers
- bell peppers
- nuts/seeds
- carrots