Amazing Chicken BLT Salad

My husband often has these fantasies that he's on a diet. He does this all the time. Then, these diets get amended so that he can eat whatever the hell he wants, which makes me super jealous. Anyway, he's currently just starting a health kick, and these always begin with a proclamation by my dearest Mark that he's only eating salads for dinner. So, I came up with this really good salad that has tons of flavor and isn't that bad for you. It has chicken breast and bacon-- but it's lean bacon so the total amount on this salad only has 40 calories. I think your carnivorous counterparts will enjoy....

This salad is amazing. I can only say this is amazing because 1. it looks AMAZING, and 2. it has so many awesome veggies on it. This salad without the chicken and bacon would be soooo good, and as any carnivore will tell you, adding bacon to things makes it exponentially more fantastic in their minds. Chicken can't hurt either. So, let's get started.

To begin, I make my quick baste for the chicken. This could be used as a marinade, too, but I use it as a basting tool since I procrastinated and didn't have time for any overnight marinating. Marinating is for chumps.

This is a marinade that I found online a while ago, and sort of adapted for my own purposes. And it's also adapted according to what I had on hand. Most of the time, I'm super lazy and refuse to leave my apartment to buy baby yak tears, or whatever the hell some people expect me to have. So, here it is. It's just oil, dijon mustard, soy sauce, minced garlic, and italian seasoning. I go heavy on the dijon mustard, include about half a tablespoon of italian seasoning, and go easy on the soy sauce. Other people love soy sauce, and go heavy on that. Just taste it first, and make sure you like it. You can't go wrong with this combo, though!

When you mix it all together, it should look something like this:

Then, you take a boneless, skinless chicken breast and slosh it all around in there. I put the breasts in individual bags as soon as I got them, so that there would be minimal gross chicken touching. Check out this move...

Pow! Like a chicken contact avoiding ninja. Then, I thoroughly coat my chicken with this stuff, while putting a nonstick frying pan on medium heat with about a tablespoon of oil or butter. When you can tell your oil is sizzling and your pan is getting hot, put in your chicken. 

I let it sit like this for maybe a minute, and then I put the lid on and leave it alone for 5-6 minutes. Putting the lid on keeps your chicken from getting dry, because all that nice chicken steam is getting crazy in there like a magical chicken steam room. 

 Now just leave this here exactly like this for 5-6 minutes on medium heat. Next, we're moving on to the bacon. 

I'm just gonna put this out there... As a vegetarian, bacon disgusts me. I'm not even sure what the hell it is, but it's like bookmarks made of meat and it comes in a creepy pouch that's got some kind of yellow liquid all around it. That being said, bacon has really pissed me off a few good times, because when I pan fried it, I have to stand there, coddling the bacon, turning it, making sure it's ok while it acts like a porky asshole and pops grease all in my face. Not cool. Not okay. Not to mention... what do I do with this weird pan of grease? wait for it to cool and then let it stink up my trash can? Eff that. Then, I discovered that you can cook bacon in the oven. That's right. You can put the oven on 375 and put the bacon in there for 12-16 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat. The bacon will then be finished, you don't get hot grease in your corneas, AND you can pick up this foil and throw it away. So amazing, I can't tell you. 

Oh, here you go, preheated oven magician. Let me put bacon in you, and you just cook it while I do some other stuff, okay? Thanks. Be back for you later. 

Meanwhile, it's probably been 5-6 minutes since you felt super pleased with yourself about putting bacon on a cookie sheet and making the oven your bitch. So, turn your chicken, cover it, and let it go another 6 minutes. I turn mine with a fork because I'm a spaz with a spatula, but I encourage you to do whatever the hell you want. 

Aaaaand, cover. Like I said, you've got 6 minutes, so cut up your lettuce and veggies. This is where I really shine, because I prep veggies like a badass. I recommend buying a big head of iceberg lettuce, because it's like a dollar and when you cut it up, you end up with A LOT of lettuce. If you're unsure of how to chop lettuce, just thonk the hard white bottom on the counter until the little white stem becomes unattached, yank that bitch out, cut your lettuce head in half, and cut it into vertical strips. Then, turn it and cut the other way. Perfect. Store it in a big Tupperware, because putting it in a big plastic bag will make it go brown faster.

I won't bore you with the details of cutting the veggies, but basically just cut them into bite-size chunks. My husband likes a lot of veggies, and I always have a lot on hand for myself. Therefore, this salad includes lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumbers, green peppers, and red peppers. You may adjust accordingly-- put in whatever you want!

You may not yet be a veggie cutting ninja like myself, so this may take you longer than 6 minutes. Just make sure that sometime in the meanwhile, you don't cook your chicken too long. After 6 minutes on the other side, take it out and cut it in half. If it isn't pink on the inside, you are good to go. 

Then, just transfer your chicken to a plate and cut it into smaller pieces for the salad. After this, you can just let it cool on the plate while you assemble the rest of everything. It doesn't have to be completely cool, but you don't want it to be screaming hot when you put it on your salad, either. Especially if you're making this salad to be eaten later, as I am.

Now, it should be about time to get that bacon out. I used the Gwaltney 40% less fat bacon, which is super thin. This is probably why it has 40% less fat, but I digress. It took 13 minutes in the oven. I've cooked the normal Oscar Mayer bacon, which is thicker, and it takes about 15-16 minutes. Just watch it. If your bacon is sizzling pretty well, and the bubbles on top are small, rather than really big, and if it doesn't have that creepy raw meat look, you're probably alright. This is what mine looked like when I took it out:

That's right, gurrrrl. That's how we do it. Then, just transfer to a paper towel, throw away the aluminum foil, and put your totally clean cookie sheet BACK in yo' cabinet. That's right. 

I actually only used 2 pieces of bacon for the salad, but go crazy if you'd like. Ok, now we can assemble! First, put down your lettuce, followed by your veggies. My husband says he likes it when the chicken is on the bottom, because he gets the veggies out of the way and there's a chickeny surprise for him at the bottom. I pretended I didn't hear this, because I think we can all agree that's a ridiculous thing to say. Therefore, like most other people, I put the chicken on top like God intended.  

Tear up your bacon and scatter it all over the top, and you are good to go! My husband is so strange to me, because he doesn't eat dressing on his salad. That's why this salad is sans dressing, but I think this would be one bomb ass salad with some ranch dressing. Just sayin. 

It's in this super fancy Tupperware so that Mark can take it to work tonight, and everyone can marvel at what a kickass salad he has, and what a great wife I am. Meanwhile, I'll be at home watching Keeping up with the Kardashians reruns and continuously patting myself on the back for yet another meaty salad achievement.