I don’t know about you, but we love to eat salads on July 4th. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of burgers and sausages on our grill to keep up with tradition (check out my posts here, here and here for 4th of July meat-based menu ideas). However, we also have 4-5 kinds of salads on hand, to brighten up the atmosphere and to ensure we eat a balanced meal. Yep, for us, 4th of July is a balancing act 🙂
The salad recipe below concludes my Pure Flavor veggie cooking bonanza, and it’s a salad I will definitely make again on July 4th. Simple yet very effective, this salad succeeds thanks to the crunchy baby arugula and the thirst-quenching cherry tomatoes, whose assertiveness cuts through the richness of the roast chicken and provides it with summer flavors and freshness galore.
I was inspired to develop this recipe by the Pure Flavor Sweet&Crunchy Cloud 9 cherry tomatoes, which in my view are truly innovative. All Pure Flavor veggies come in recyclable packaging, but the packaging for these cherry tomatoes takes sustainability one step further because the paper trays are made from the tomato plants themselves. What a great idea!
Pure Flavor staff spend between 6-8 months developing one tomato variety alone, making sure it benefits from the best possible conditions inside the greenhouse and the end product is both nutritious and good to the planet. This is definitely time well spent when it comes to the Cloud 9 cherry tomatoes, which exhibit an almost candy-like sweetness and a summery aroma which once again reminded me of the tomatoes I used to eat when I was a child. Great memories – and very dear to me 🙂
In this recipe I also used the Pure Flavor Aurora Sweets peppers, which are just perfect for grilling!
These peppers are sweet and crunchy, and therefore good as a snack when they’re fresh. Meanwhile, in their grilled state, they are an excellent addition to salads due to their unique charred flavor, which makes every dish all the more exciting. As you know by now, I am a big fan of roasted peppers – I’ve lost count of the number of times I posted recipes featuring roasted peppers on this blog, lol
This recipe is also perfect to use up any roast chicken leftovers you might have. If you’re like us and get bored of eating the same roast chicken after a couple of days, adding crunchy baby arugula and juicy cherry tomatoes to shredded chicken makes a lot of difference in terms of flavors. Equally important, you avoid throwing the chicken away while it’s still fresh and edible.
The gift box I received from Pure Flavor also included Gaea natural grape glaze, which is made of 100% grape must.
I had never used this grape glaze before. Yet, I am very familiar with grape must flavor – after all, I spent many days helping grown ups make wine when I was a child 😉 As expected, this thick, sweet&sour grape glaze went well with the chicken and veggie flavors, and also provided the salad with a golden-brown, appetizing look – a nice bonus.
Enjoy this salad now, tomorrow and all summer long! 🙂
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 20 minutes |
| Servings |
portions
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Ingredients
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- Brush the sweet pepper halves with extra virgin olive oil. Grill the peppers on a preheated grill for about 20 minutes or until soft, turning once during cooking. Take the pepper halves off the grill and set aside to cool down for a few minutes.
- Once they have cooled down, cut the grilled peppers lengthwise into manageable strips, as per your preferences.
- Place the roast chicken, cherry tomatoes and baby arugula in a salad bowl. Add the sweet pepper strips, extra virgin olive oil and natural grape glaze. Mix until well combined, season to taste and serve.
- Enjoy!
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