Warm Buffalo Chicken Salad
Warm Buffalo Salad works any time of year. I cook chicken breast in buffalo sauce with celery, then serve it with blue cheese crumbles, avocado, red pepper, and blue cheese dressing.
I eat a lot of salads when the weather is warm. Even in colder months, I still crave salads—but I don’t want an entirely cold meal. That’s when I turn to a warm salad like this one.
If you like hot sauce, chances are you like anything buffalo (I know I do). You should also try my Buffalo Rosemary Chicken Skewers which are so good cooked on the grill. Pictured above below.
Buffalo flavors
This Warm Buffalo Chicken Salad has all the components and flavors you come to expect when eating buffalo chicken. Celery, hot sauce, blue cheese and blue cheese dressing with some bonus items of avocado and red bell pepper. I have the most delicious Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing, if you want to check that out.
To get as much flavor into the chicken as possible, the chicken breasts are pounded thin and cooked in butter and hot sauce along with celery.
If your grocery store sells already thin cut chicken breasts, then you are ahead of the game. This is my no means a healthy salad, is any buffalo dish? But you can’t beat the flavor combination of the hot sauce and blue cheese dressing. It is one of the delicious flavor combinations I have grown to love since I moved the U.S.
This salad can also be made ahead or make great leftovers. For instance, I had a pack of four chicken breasts, but I was only making this for my husband and myself. I cooked all the chicken breasts and stored the leftover pieces along with the celery and sauce in a tupperware and assembled two more salads the next day.
Warm Buffalo Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Salt
- Pepper
- 3 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 cups (226 grams) celery, sliced
- 1 cup (236 ml) Franks red hot sauce
- 4 heads of romaine chopped, 8 ounces each
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch slices
- 2 avocados, sliced or cut into chunks
- Blue cheese dressing
- ½ cup (113 grams) blue cheese crumbles
Instructions
- Lay the chicken breasts on a cutting board, cover with plastic wrap and pound with a small frying pan, rolling pin or mallet until a little thicker than ¼ inch. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken breasts evenly.
- To a large sauté pan add the 3 tablespoons butter and melt over medium heat. When the butter melts and start to bubble, add the chicken and cook for 2 minutes per side, remove and set aside.
- To the same pan add 1 tablespoon of butter and melt. When the butter bubbles, add the celery and stir to coat with the butter, cook for 2 minutes. Add the hot sauce and stir to mix. Add the chicken and coat with the celery and sauce. Cook for 3 minutes.
- Turn off the heat under the chicken and transfer from the pan onto a cutting board and leave to rest for 2 minutes.
- Add the romaine, peppers and avocado to a large bowl. Toss with the salad dressing. You can add more dressing depending how you much you like.
- Slice the chicken and place over the lettuce, top with sauce and celery, blue cheese crumbles and more dressing if desired.
Baked Chicken Tenders with Buffalo Blue Cheese Sauce
I love anything buffalo! I am drooling over this salad!! Nettie
A good salad makes a perfect lunch – and with the warm, spiced ingredients in this one, I can see it pulling double-shift in winter!
I love buffalo flavoured foods so this salad would be perfect as it is still a healthy option! I’m also a massive fan of chicken salads with warm chicken.
Yum- I love hot toppings on a salad. Otherwise it just seems like an appetizer!
Now this sounds like my kind of salad!! I have a slight addiction to anything covered in buffalo sauce. This is going to make for a great meal!
This sounds so good! I’m a huge fan of anything buffalo flavored!