Most days I eat pretty unimaginative lunches. Lots of leftovers and frozen meals. Sometimes I'll microwave a burger or bake some fish sticks and put them on top of salad. Nothing very exciting. I usually save all of the good stuff for dinner meal planning.
But every so often, inspiration strikes, and sometimes it's born out of necessity. Today, we had half a bag of chopped romaine and half a bunch of cilantro to use up. The perfect lunch came to mind - an Asian chicken salad. I could make it Vietnamese-inspired and finally open the fish sauce that had been sitting in the cabinet for weeks.
Simple and healthy salad
I didn't follow an exact recipe, but mixed together ingredients I remembered seeing in lots of Vietnamese-style recipes. The salad doesn't look very exciting mixed up in the bowl, but it was really tasty. Other than washing some extremely dirty cilantro, it was also really quick and simple.
To make the salad, I used:
- 1/2 bag of chopped romaine ($1)
- 1/2 bunch of cilantro, leaves only, not chopped ($0.50)
- 1 can of chicken, microwaved for 30 seconds ($2)
The dressing consisted of (all approximate amounts):
- 1.5 tbsp fish sauce ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar ($0.05)
- 1 tsp sugar ($0.05)
- red pepper flakes to taste ($0.02)
- garlic powder to taste ($0.05)
Less than $4 and very healthy.
Dressing ingredients
I really liked the salad and would definitely make it again. It got a little salty near the bottom of the bowl where the dressing was more concentrated, but that's easy to solve by just using a little less dressing. Otherwise, this was a great lunch!
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