Let there be salad..

Happy Sunday! Well I guess not so happy since tomorrow is Monday! And it has been one hot weekend here in the central valley!! UUgh I hate it! But since  this summer time weather has forced it's way into my life it is time for some BBQ! I do love utilizing my BBQ on hot evenings when the thought of turning on the oven makes me feel faint.

I wanted to share with you all a little yummy I tried tonight and it worked out MAGICALLY!

I have tried this before but the result were not so favorable .....

Iam a big fan of the Buffalo Chicken Salad from Chili's. Chili's is our normal family place for the occasions that we take the kids out. If its just me and the hubs we usually go a little more fancy ( but not to much, that would involve to much work getting fancied up!) I am the kind of person that always orders the same thing at each restaurant I go to. I do not like to try new dishes, every time I do I hate it!. This is not the scenario at home, I love to cook and I am always trying new dishes, but at restaurants I always get burned when trying new food.

So here getting back to the point. I love this salad. It has spice from the buffalo seasoning and creamy from the ranch, corn chips .. well here is a run down of ingredients from the Chili's website

"With applewood smoked bacon, bleu cheese crumbles, tortilla strips, house-made pico de gallo and ranch dressing."

After the 1000 time ordering this salad, I had to try to make it on my own. As noted above I did try once to make the fried buffalo chicken and lets just say No Bueno... So this time I opted to make grilled chicken

And here is my version. I used a recipe from food network for the chicken ( you can find it here) It was a Bobby Flay recipe that I tweaked just a bit. I believe he was using chicken breast with the skin on,  and I just used frozen tenderloins that I defrosted and seasoned as instructed, but when cooking on the BBQ I basted with the marinade on both sides. Here is a run down of my indigents

1. Bag of Salad, I like the 5 lettuce blend so you get some of the darker stuff in there instead of just iceburg.

2. A few Tortilla chips that I crumbled up

3. 1 tbs. Bleu Cheese crumbles

4. Some Ranch made from the packet, Which I think is way better than the stuff in the bottle. Plus I used LF ingredients to make..

5. Cant make a Chili's Copycat dish with out my Chili's Copy cat salsa ( you can find that recipe here also !)

6. Avocado

7. Tamed Jalapenos ( TAMMED because if not those suckers are hot!!)

*8. Insert tomatoes here, I didn't have any but I would have if I did. But the salsa made up for the lack of tomatoes.

Here is a close up!!

For me this definitely hit the spot! I'm not going to say I do not have to go out to get this anymore but this is for sure going into the dinner rotation. I wish I had a calorie count to give out, but I am almost 100% positive that the homemade version has to be better. The chicken it grilled not fried. The portion size was more in line with what one person could/should eat. And I used less dressing and the LF version of said dressing... Yea dont you think??!! 

Try this out for sure I think you will love it, and please let me know what you think I would love to hear your comments!

Hope each and everyone of you have a great week!

~ Bianca

* found a calorie count for the Chili's version on my helpful fitness app on my phone. The Chili's version can be anywhere from 800-1000 Calories! Yikes. I calculated mine and it runs anywhere from 400-500 cals depending on how much of each ingredient you use. Also I forgot to mention I omitted the  heavy cream cream and creme fraiche sauce in the Bobby Flay recipe because I didn't want the extra calories and I planned on using the ranch.. Hope that helps!