Come on, admit it: occasionally you use Italian dressing as a marinade. We all do at some point. It is fast, easy, and delicious. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t keep doing it.
As good as it is, I have found that it is a little harder for me to use up leftover chicken that has been cooked with Italian dressing because it doesn’t roll over into a soup, chili or stir-fry as easily as garlic chicken or teriyaki chicken. The flavor just doesn’t blend as well with other ingredients. So instead of trying to hide it, I highlight it by making Italian chicken Salad.
Italian dressing packs a lot of flavor and creates an amazingly delicious chicken salad. Using Italian dressing to make chicken salad has the added advantage of letting you create an egg-free chicken salad for friends with an egg allergy.
- 1½ - 2 pounds cooked chicken, shredded
- 3 Roma tomatoes, diced
- ½ cup diced onion
- ⅓ cup diced bell pepper
- ⅓ - ½ cup Italian Salad Dressing
- combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and stir until the dressing is fully incorporated and thoroughly coats all of the other ingredients.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Served chilled.
Mark Odil says
Dear Alea: I’m not much on store bought fresh tomatoes. They don’t taste that good. I wonder if sun dried tomatoes would work as well in this recipe. What are your thoughts? Would you use the kind that are oil packed or the kind that is not? Mark
Alea Milham says
I think sun-dried tomatoes could work. Whatever kind you use, drain them well.