A healthy chicken strawberry spinach salad with fresh summer flavors that's high protein, low carb, and gluten free.
You'll love this healthy chicken strawberry salad!
With less than 300 calories per serving, a whopping 29 g of protein, and 11 carbs (9 net carbs if you count net carbs), this makes the best salad recipe from spring through summer!
In less than 30 minutes, you can have a gorgeous fresh and fruity salad packed with lean protein, with just a touch of goat cheese and fresh basil that make the salad pop with flavor.
Our recipe starts with pre-cooked chicken, we always cook up a batch or two of chicken on Sundays for the week. We highly recommend this, since it makes it so easy to toss together last-minute healthy main dish salads and other meals. You can also use precooked chicken from Costco or Whole Foods to save you even more time.
Ingredients you'll need
We're listing what we used for the salad, it's really easy to adjust the quantities to fit your macros whether it's reducing the pecans to cut the fat, increasing the chicken for more protein, or adding in a grain like quinoa to increase the carbs.
- baby spinach - other greens would work well like arugula, chopped romaine, or shredded kale
- cooked chicken - Feel free to use rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or leftover chicken you have on hand. If you need to cook chicken, we recommend our simple baked chicken breast recipe.
- strawberries - the star of the salad! We combined strawberries and blueberries, feel free to use all strawberries if desired.
- blueberries
- Persian cucumber - these are the smaller cucumbers, you can also use English cucumber.
- red onion - the best salad for eating raw. Pickled red onions or green onions would also be a great option.
- goat cheese - feta cheese, brie, or blue cheese would all be delicious. For a dairy-free salad, use diced avocados.
- walnuts - pecans, sliced almonds, pumpkin seeds, or sunflower seeds are great alternatives.
- fresh basil leaves - just a handful add a great amount of fresh summer flavor!
Get the recipe quantities and full instructions down in the recipe card at the bottom!
Recipe steps
- Add the baby spinach leaves to a large bowl or divide it into 4 portions in individual bowls or on plates. (It's easier to get exact macros with individual portions).
- Add the chicken, strawberries, blueberries, cucumbers, red onion, goat cheese, walnuts, and slivered basil leaves.
- Serve the salad with dressing on the side. Balsamic vinegar is my go-to choice, or you can use vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil, our easy honey balsamic dressing recipe, or your favorite store-bought dressing.
Meal prep tips
If you want to meal prep this salad for lunches or even dinners, here's the modifications we recommend:
- Store the spinach separately from the remaining salad ingredients, otherwise, it'll wilt. Shredded kale is also a hearty green that holds up in salads all week long.
- Add balsamic vinegar or your favorite dressing when you go to eat it, otherwise, the dressing will make the salad soggy.
- If you swap the cheese for avocado, cut that the day of since it turns brown once opened.
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Recipe
Strawberry Chicken Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 6 oz bag baby spinach (170g) 4 cups
- 16 oz cooked chicken (450g) This is about 1 ⅓ lb raw chicken, or use store-bought rotisserie chicken
- 1 cup strawberries (137g)
- 1 cup blueberries (143g)
- 1 Persian cucumber (120g)
- ¼ cup red onion (50g) sliced
- 1 oz goat cheese (28g)
- 1 oz walnuts (28g)
Instructions
- Add the spinach to a medium-sized salad bowl or divide it into 4 portions on dinner plates.
- Arrange the chopped chicken, strawberries, blueberries, cucumbers, red onion, goat cheese, walnuts, and slivered basil leaves on top of the spinach.
- Serve the salad with dressing on the side. Balsamic vinegar is a terrific simple choice, or you can use vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil, our easy honey balsamic dressing recipe, or your favorite store-bought dressing.
Notes
- The macros for the salad are just for the salad ingredients and do not include the dressing. This is why we love adding just a drizzle of balsamic vinegar as the dressing. It's packed with flavor but doesn't change the macros by much.
- You can reduce the fat even further by leaving out the chopped nuts.
- To increase the carbs, adding a healthy starch like quinoa or garbanzo beans.
- Our roasted chicken recipe is something we make on repeat every week. Why not double it to save some for the freezer, and assemble easy meals like this during the week?
- The total weight of the salad is 1126g.
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