Lemon Thyme Chicken Salad

Have you ever gone to the store, did your full week of grocery shopping and come home only to find you forgot a couple key ingredients for tonight’s dinner? Oh good, glad it’s not just me.

There I was standing in my garden thinking, ‘bugger’, what am I going to make? Then I looked down at my gargantuan lemon thyme plant and started formulating this recipe. Do you grow lemon thyme? I absolutely love running my hand over the lemon thyme plant and then take a big deep inhale. The scent is divine. I always grow it just so I can do that whenever I’m in the garden. As for culinary uses it works well with fish or poultry and I’m always trying to figure out ways to use it more. It lends itself beautifully to a light summer meal.

We were heading to an outdoor children’s concert, so I was planning an easy portable dinner for that evening. I whipped up this recipe and blessedly had a couple of willing adult and kid taste-testers at the concert. They said this was light, tangy and they loved the strong lemon flavor. The kids just said it was really good, and considering it was eaten clean off their plates, I’ll take that as a win.

Lemon Thyme Chicken Salad

Chicken:

1lb. chicken breast

½ t garlic powder

½ t sea salt

1 t fresh lemon thyme chopped

1 t cooking fat of choice (I used bacon fat)

¼ cup water

Dressing:

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

¼-1/3 cup good quality mayo (I use Primal Kitchen)

1T fresh lemon thyme, chopped

1T chives, chopped

¼ t sea salt

Instructions:

1. Lay chicken breast between two pieces of parchment paper. Take meat hammer and flatten to about ½ in thick. (I don’t know why, I just like it way better this way. This technique comes from the cookbook Well Fed Weeknights.)
2. Mix garlic powder, lemon thyme and sea salt in a small bowl. Sprinkle seasoning over both sides of chicken.
3. Heat a cast-iron skillet (or sauté pan of choice) over medium heat with cooking fat of choice (I used bacon grease). Saute chicken on first side for about 5 minutes and then flip. Saute for another 2 minutes.
4. Add water to pan and cover for another 7 minutes or until cooked through.
5. Make the dressing while the chicken finishes. Whisk all ingredients together until blended.
6. When chicken is finished cooking, cut into bite sizes pieces and place in a bowl.
7. Pour dressing over chicken and combine all.

I paired the chicken salad with this potato salad and quite possibly secured my marriage for another year or two. 😉 (Although I skipped the feta and peppers, because I didn’t have them and used stone-ground mustard instead of dijon. Geesh, I don’t follow recipes all that well sometimes. Turned out great though!) 

Got a picnic coming up? This is light and refreshing and perfect for a summer evening! Enjoy!