Easy Grilled Chicken Salad – a classic summer grilled chicken salad recipe that always hits the spot! Easily customizable with your favorite dressing and toppings!
Best Ever Grilled Chicken Salad
One of my favorite summer salads! This easy grilled chicken recipe is a go-to in our house all summer long. It is so versatile and perfect for summer with all the fun fruit involved! Feel free to get creative and make it your own. I love using our go-to homemade chicken marinade to amp up the flavor even more and don’t forget we have a great tutorial on How to Grill Chicken Breasts to make sure they turn out juicy and delicious every time!
Grilled Chicken Salad Ingredients
- chicken breasts: love grilling chicken breasts! But you could also use grilled chicken thighs, smoked chicken breasts or smoked chicken thighs as well.
- salt and pepper: for that bit of seasoning – this easy chicken seasoning is good too!
- romaine lettuce: feel free to use any mixed greens, spinach, butter lettuce, etc.
- avocado: you know I am a huge avocado fan – love tossing this on any salad!
- strawberries + blueberries: I absolutely LOVE adding some fruit to my salads – that pop of sweetness is so perfect (I love adding blueberries to my easy steak salad too).
- red onions: or you could make some Quick-Pickled Onions!
- cherry tomatoes: alternatively you could use diced Roma tomatoes!
- other add-ins: feel free to add in some chopped bacon, slivered almonds, homemade croutons, etc!
- Dressing of your choice: Creamy Balsamic, Whole30 ranch dressing, creamy Italian dressing
Other Healthy Summer Salads:
- Healthy Taco Salad
- Grilled Vegetable Salad
- Massaged Kale Salad
- Smoked Chicken Salad
- Salmon Caesar Salad
- Shrimp Caesar Salad
How to Make Grilled Chicken Salad
Pick out your dressing – we love making our own!
If you want to marinate your chicken breasts we have the best chicken marinade option!
Toss that chicken on the grill!
Remove and let rest.
Divide other salad ingredients between bowls and enjoy!
Recipe FAQ
- Chicken: Feel free to use grilled chicken thighs on this recipe if you want instead of chicken breasts!
- Other additional toppings: While not Whole30/Paleo I also love tossing in some mandarin oranges on this salad too!!
- Dressing: If you aren’t necessarily concerned with Whole30/paleo, I also love throwing some poppyseed dressing on this salad! Either our homemade poppyseed dressing or a store bought poppyseed salad dressing!
- Make Ahead: I highly recommend grilling some extra chicken breasts with another meal you grill so you already have that ready to go! That makes throwing this recipe together that much easier!!
OTHER RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE:
- Easy Lemon Pasta
- How to Grill Corn with Husks On
- How to Grill Romaine
- Chicken Caesar Salad
- Grilled Salmon Salad
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Easy Grilled Chicken Salad Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 2 salads 1x
- Category: Dinner/Entree
- Method: Grill
- Cuisine: American
Description
Easy Grilled Chicken Salad – a summer classic made with simple, delicious ingredients!
Ingredients
- (optional) 1 batch chicken marinade
- 2 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
- salt and pepper
- 4 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
- 1 large avocado, diced
- 2 cups strawberries, sliced
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1/4 cup red onions, chopped or sliced
- Optional: 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- Paleo/Whole30 dressing of your choice: Creamy Balsamic, Whole30 Ranch, Creamy Italian
Instructions
Grilled Chicken Breasts:
- (optional) Combine marinade ingredients. Place chicken in a silicone bag and pour marinade over top. Ensure chicken is fully coated and let marinate a minimum of 30 minutes.
- Place chicken breasts on plate and sprinkle both sides with a generous amount of the salt and pepper mix (no need to do this if marinating first).
- Heat grill to medium heat (approximately 400 degrees).
- Place chicken on direct heat (direct flame) and cook at medium heat for 4-5 minutes per side.
- Move chicken away from the direct heat (direct flame) so that it is cooking on indirect heat (maintaining the same grill temp) and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes (you don’t need to flip during this point because the chicken will cook as if it is in an oven) or until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the chicken reads 160 on your meat thermometer.
- Remove from grill and let rest at least 5 minutes (the chicken will continue to cook during this time and the internal temp will continue to rise up to 10 additional degrees).
- Chicken is safe to eat when it reaches an internal temp of 165 degrees (at thickest part of the breast).
- Once rested, dice the chicken breasts and set aside.
Salad:
- Add 2 cups lettuce to each bowl.
- Add avocado, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes and onions.
- Add diced chicken breast.
- Top with Creamy Balsamic, Whole30 Ranch or Creamy Italian (or any other dressing of your choice).
Notes
- Chicken: Feel free to use grilled chicken thighs on this recipe if you want instead of chicken breasts!
- Other additional toppings: While not Whole30/Paleo I also love tossing in some mandarin oranges on this salad too!!
- Dressing: If you aren’t necessarily concerned with Whole30/paleo, we love adding a homemade poppyseed dressing or a store bought poppyseed salad dressing!
- Make Ahead: I highly recommend grilling some extra chicken breasts with another meal you grill so you already have that ready to go! That makes throwing this recipe together that much easier!!
Originally published July 12, 2020.
Lisa James says
This salad is perfect for summer nights! very easy to put together, and it is beautiful as well as delicious! It is going to be a regular on our meal rotation
Erin says
So happy to hear that, Lisa!! It’s one of our favorite salads as well! Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback – I really appreciate it!