Satay Chicken Salad in Lettuce Boats. A Fun Salad For All The Family!

Day 8 - Salads for Spring

If you are looking for ways to make salad taste better or a salad for the whole family then I don’t think it gets any better than these chicken satay lettuce boats. Kids will love getting stuck into these and eating them with their hands and you can either assemble these just before serving, or I think they’re best served with all the ingredients laid out on a board like fajitas and you can make them up as you’re eating them. If you want to make this salad on the go, you can slice up the lettuce and have it in a lunch box, replacing the lettuce with some brown rice, if you like.

Salad often gets a bad reputation and I think that’s because when sometimes people think of salad, they think of a measly bit of lettuce and cucumber in a bowl. These ‘lettuce boats’ are the exact opposite of that and are another way to make eating a salad a little bit more interesting and are appealing to adults (and kids if you’re lucky!) so I’d highly recommend giving them a try.

This chicken satay salad recipe is full of protein and flavour and is guaranteed to please a crowd. I can’t think of anything better than sitting in the sunshine with a cold beer eating a bunch of these lettuce boats, but when I can’t do that they make a pretty great workday lunch too.

Time 30 minutes

Skill: Easy

Serves 2 – can happily be scaled up or down

INGREDIENTS

For the chicken:

3 chicken thighs

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp black vinegar or lime juice

2 tsp cornflour

2 tsp sugar

1 clove of garlic, crushed, or 1 tsp garlic paste 

For the sauce:

2 tbsp peanut butter, I like Pip and Nut for its runt consistency

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp water

Juice of half a lime

1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

For the salad:

1 head of romaine lettuce

¼ cucumber, seeds removed and sliced

4 radishes, sliced

1 tbsp salted peanuts

 METHOD

1. Start off by marinating the chicken in the crushed garlic, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and cornflour. Leave this to marinate for about half an hour or so if you have the time.

2. To make the dressing add all of the ingredients for the source into a bowl and stir, I like to use runny peanut butter but if yours is really thick you might need to add more water and stir more vigorously.

3. Cook the chicken thighs in a medium-high pan for about six minutes on each side and then rest for a few minutes before slicing into 0.5cm strips. Be sure to check there’s no pink meat inside.

4. The best way to get lettuce boats from romaine lettuce is to remove the two outer leaves and slice off the bottom of the lettuce and remove each stem from the bottom – this will make it easier for you to keep them fully intact. Wash the leaves and pat dry with some kitchen paper.

5. To serve, place all of the ingredients on a large board and allow everyone to dig in, or fill eave leaf with some sliced radish, cucumber and chicken and then top with a drizzle of the sauce, some peanuts and a few leaves of coriander.

6. Enjoy!

If you liked this, why not check out my other recipes here.