This Grilled Chicken Salad is deeply flavored with grilled mushrooms, red onions, sweet peppers, and baby spinach, tossed with our healthy take on a flavorful French dressing. Perfect for weeknights or entertaining!
This grilled chicken salad has all the best elements in place. The idea behind this recipe is based on the classic spinach salad, which typically features raw mushrooms, raw onion, hard-boiled egg, and bacon. In our version, we elevated this to an entrée salad, utilizing the grill for a delicious summer meal outdoors.
Mushrooms, red onions, and sweet peppers are grilled along with this amazingly flavorful marinated chicken. (Of course, you can leave the chicken off and throw on tofu bacon or your favorite plant-based protein.) The grilled goodies are served over spinach and dressed with a delicious and healthy French dressing.
This spinach salad is heavenly, topped with optional hard-boiled eggs, feta cheese, and coconut bacon! Coconut bacon is super easy to make with just 3 ingredients! Adding a delicious, sweet, and savory crunch. Though feel free to use whatever version of bacon that you prefer such as this vegan bacon, crispy cooked tempeh bacon, regular bacon or turkey bacon!
Ingredients in Spinach Salad
- Baby spinach is the base of the salad.
- Mushrooms- any grillable mushroom (cremini, portobello, shitake, maitake, oyster, etc.)
- Red onion- we grill them!
- Bell peppers or sweet peppers – also grilled.
- Our herby grilled chicken, which pairs well with many dishes and can be meal-prepped! See variations for vegan option.
- French Dressing (recipe below)
- Optional additions: hard-boiled eggs, feta cheese, and Coconut bacon
Variations
Make it vegan! Leave out the chicken and hard-boiled eggs. Throw on your favorite protein- grilled tofu, crispy tofu, or roasted chickpeas would all be great. Avocado would make a lovely addition in lieu of the egg.
How to Make Grilled Chicken Salad with Spinach
Step one. Start marinating the chicken, following this grilled chicken recipe. This step can also be completed up to a day in advance.
Step 2. Make the dressing by whisking together red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, maple syrup, sea salt, pepper, minced garlic, smoked paprika, and tomato paste. Drizzle in olive oil, whisking all the while until combined and emulsified.
Step 3. Grill! Grill the veggies and the marinated chicken over medium-high heat.
Step 4. Remove from the grill when they are cooked to your liking. The vegetables will continue to cook slightly after removing them from the heat.
Step 5 Assemble: Toss the spinach with some of the dressing (you will have some dressing left over). Cut chicken, peppers, and mushrooms into bite-sized slices. Arrange over the dressed spinach. Top with sliced hard-boiled eggs, feta cheese, and coconut bacon.
Storage and Meal Prep
Leftovers will keep up to one day in the fridge- or to store longer, store the components separately in airtight containers for up to 4 days.
The salad, dressing, and chicken can all be prepped ahead & grilled ahead and served up later for quick and healthy mid-week meals.
More Favorite Summer Salads
- Summer Pasta Salad w/ Grilled Zucchini, Corn and Cilantro Pesto
- Cobb Salad
- Summer Panzanella Salad
- Grilled Tuscan Bread Salad
- Chicken Arugula Salad
- How to Grill Veggies
- The Best Grilled Chicken
- 35+ Chicken Breast Recipes
Hope you enjoy this salad as much as we have!
MORE CHICKEN SALAD RECIPES TO TRY!
- Grilled Chipotle Chicken
- Thai Chicken Salad with Spinach
- Chicken Salad with Quinoa & Arugula
- Chicken Salad Sandwich
- Quinoa Chicken Salad
- Black Bean Salad with Corn & Quinoa
Spinach Salad with Grilled Veggies & Chicken
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 4
- Category: Salad, grilled
- Method: Grill
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This spinach salad is a twist on the classic with deeply flavored with grilled mushrooms, red onions, sweet peppers, and optional herby grilled chicken. Topped with our flavorful take on a healthy French-style dressing. A hearty and complete dinner for warm days.
Ingredients
- 1 – 1 1/2 pounds of marinated chicken breast
- 6 crimini mushrooms- or sub portobellos, shitake, maitake, oyster
- 1 small red onion
- 1 red or yellow bell pepper, sliced in half or 6 mini sweet peppers
- 10 ounces baby spinach
- Optional: sliced hard-boiled eggs, coconut bacon, and feta cheese
French Style Dressing
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
- 1/3 cup olive oil
Optional Coconut Bacon (or use this vegan bacon, crispy cooked tempeh bacon, regular bacon or turkey bacon)
- 1 cup wide raw coconut flakes
- 1 tablespoon smoked soy sauce (or soy sauce or braggs + 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke)
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
Instructions
- Marinate the chicken– use this recipe.
- Make the dressing. Whisk together red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, maple syrup, sea salt, pepper, minced garlic, smoked paprika, and tomato paste. Drizzle in olive oil whisking all the while until combined and emulsified.
- Grill. Pre-heat your grill with the lid closed, on high heat. Brush mushrooms, onion slices, and peppers with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Lower heat to medium-high. Place the marinated chicken and veggies on the hot grill. Close the lid for about 4 minutes. Flip veggies over with the metal tongs. Check the chicken, turning them only after good grill marks appear. Close the lid for another 4-8 minutes. Remove veggies from the grill when they are cooked to your liking, and continue cooking chicken until cooked through at the thickest part (165 F). The veggies will continue to cook a bit after removing from the heat.
- Assemble: Toss the spinach with some of the dressing (you will have some dressing left over).Cut chicken, peppers and mushrooms into bite-sized slices. Arrange over the dressed spinach. Top with optional sliced hard-boiled eggs, feta cheese and coconut bacon.
Notes
This recipe is for a gas grill.
Adjust this salad as you like, it can easily be made bigger by just adding more veggies, spinach and toppings, or cut in half for a smaller serving.
Coconut Bacon: Gently mix coconut, smoked soy sauce and maple syrup until coconut is completely coated. Bake in preheated oven at 325 F for about 6-9 minutes or until golden. It will crisp up as it cools.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: Includes 4-ounce Chicken Breast (no feta, egg, or coconut bacon)
- Calories: 346
- Sugar: 9.3 g
- Sodium: 792.4 mg
- Fat: 19.2 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 15.1 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 29 g
- Cholesterol: 82.7 mg
hi
can ketchup be used in the dressing and instead of chicken can halloumi be used?
So ketchup instead of the tomato paste should be fine. Halloumi sounds great!
Thanks
Excellent salad recipe! The vinaigrette tastes as you’d expect a quality french dressing to taste and all with affordable, healthy ingredients. I love that you toss the spinach in dressing first, and then top with remaining ingredients. Another recipe mainstay at our home!
Great to hear Emily!
This dish was so delicious. It took me a little over an hour to make. The directions were a bit confusing for me but well worth the effort. I used boneless and skinless chicken thighs and with the marinade?! So freaking good. I used white onion rather than red, just as good. My turkey bacon didn’t crisp up at all at that temp, shot it up to about 400 then it sort of did. The liquid smoke with it was a nice touch. Salad for dinner, would definitely have again and again.
Hi Jess, So glad you enjoyed the salad! Could you tell us what you were confused about in the directions? It would be helpful so we can adjust the recipe to make it more clear.
Stellar! Just stellar!!! Simple ingredients but such a great mix of flavors!
Thanks Tommy!
Love this. Made a lemon infused rice to add to the bowl. So good. Thanks.
oooo that sounds delicious Annette!
This was great, I had no feta so I used blue cheese, I also added asparagus since my husband isn’t too fond of peppers, it’s definitely a keeper even my kids loved it.
Awesome Samantha! Love that you adapted.
Sylvia, this was delicious! I love the dressing, the flavor of the marinated chicken and all combined with the grilled veggies and topped with feta and coconut bacon – OMG! Thank you for all the wonderful recipes. My husband and I are really enjoying them all, well, not all, but lots of them 🙂
Thanks Danette- Glad you both enjoyed this. Also, please be sure to let us know the ones that aren’t working out- so we can fine-tune them. You can always email me at sylvia@feastingathome.com, you will never hurt our feelings!
The salad is great! My wife is a little picky on her vegetables so we didn’t grill them and there wasn’t any left. This is my new favorite salad. I will definitely be making this again.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This salad was amazing. Absolutely loved the smokiness of the dressing with the spinach and roasted vegetables. The marinated grilled chicken was great too, but the grilled vegetables fabulous.
So glad you enjoyed this Lynne!
I love your recipes. I upload them into “Recipe Keeper” my favorite recipe App. If you have a recipe, please put all the ingredients in the recipe. Please don’t put “ Start by marinating the chicken” without putting the ingredients you would use to marinate it. I see the link, but those links don’t work when uploading into the App. Loved the recipe. Simple and easy to work with.
Hi Craig, I’m very glad you like the recipe! I see your point, and I know that the App is useful, but it does take it “off” of our site, which is counter to our business model which allows us to offer free content. Basically, you are paying for an app, that has not asked us permission (or paid us) to download our copy-righted content.I am sure most people don’t know this, and I don’t take it personally! Just venting. 🙂
Very good. The delicious smoky dressing definitely makes this one!
Awesome Mary, thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
No bacon in coconut bacon instructions???
Hi Marianne- yes, no bacaon. 😉 It is a vegan, plant-based bacon alternative.