Sticky Chicken Salad with Honey & Soy
Chicken salad can be one of those meals that sounds like a good idea until you actually put plain chicken breast next to a pile of lettuce and wonder why you bothered. This sticky chicken salad is completely different because the chicken is really the star of it.
The chicken is coated in a simple mixture of honey, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, then cooked until the sauce reduces and coats the pieces in a sweet, savoury and slightly tangy glaze. Serve it hot over a crunchy salad and you’ve got an easy lunch or light dinner that feels much more substantial than a basic salad.
The sticky chicken salad recipe serves two, but it’s very easy to add more salad or serve it with something on the side if you’re feeding particularly hungry people.
What makes the chicken sticky?
There isn’t a complicated sauce to make for this. The glaze uses just three ingredients: honey, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.
The honey gives it sweetness and helps create that sticky coating, while the soy brings the salty savoury flavour. Balsamic vinegar adds some acidity so it isn’t overwhelmingly sweet.
As the chicken and marinade cook together, the liquid reduces and becomes thicker. Keep the chicken moving around the pan so everything gets coated rather than allowing the sugary sauce to catch in one spot.
How long should I marinate the chicken?
I like giving the chicken plenty of time in the marinade because it means you can prepare that part earlier and leave it covered in the fridge until you’re ready to cook.
If you’re planning this for lunch, you could get the chicken marinating in the morning. For dinner, prepare it earlier in the day and then all you’ve really got left to do is chop the salad and cook the chicken.
Don’t leave raw chicken sitting out on the worktop to marinate. Keep it covered in the fridge until you’re ready to cook it.
Making the salad
I’ve used lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and pepper because they’re easy ingredients that work well with the sweet and salty chicken.
You don’t need to treat that list as law.
If you’ve got sweetcorn, grated carrot, radishes or spring onions that need using, throw those in too. Avocado would make it more filling, and changing the type of salad leaves can make quite a difference without changing anything about the chicken.
This is also a good recipe for those irritating quantities of vegetables left in the fridge that aren’t quite enough to make anything else!
Cooking the sticky chicken
Cook the diced chicken together with the marinade so that the marinade itself is thoroughly cooked and reduces into the sticky glaze.
Because the sauce contains honey, keep an eye on the heat. You want it bubbling and reducing around the chicken rather than burning onto the bottom of the pan.
Chicken needs to be cooked thoroughly before serving. If you’re unsure, check the thickest pieces rather than assuming that because the outside looks cooked, the middle must be too.
The Food Standards Agency guidance on cooking chicken safely is useful if you’re ever unsure about temperatures or checking that poultry is properly cooked.
Serve the chicken hot or cold?
I particularly like this with the sticky chicken salad hot because you get the contrast between warm sticky chicken and cold crunchy salad.
You can also eat cooked chicken cold, which makes this useful for lunch, but cool and store it safely rather than simply leaving it sitting around after cooking.
If you’re preparing lunches ahead, I’d keep the chicken and salad separately in the fridge and put them together when you’re ready to eat. That should help stop the salad becoming soggy.
Making it into a bigger meal
For a light lunch, I think the sticky chicken salad is plenty, but there are lots of easy ways to turn it into a bigger dinner.
Rice works particularly well with the honey and soy flavours, and my foolproof rice cooking guide might be useful if rice has an annoying tendency to go wrong for you.
Couscous would be easy too, or you could serve the chicken and salad with new potatoes, wedges or chips.
You could even skip the salad completely occasionally and use the sticky chicken with rice and vegetables. I’m not going to send the salad police round!
Can I change the vegetables?
Definitely. Salads are one of the easiest recipes to adapt because most changes don’t affect how the actual recipe cooks.
Try different leaves, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, grated carrot, red cabbage, sweetcorn, radishes or spring onions.
If you’re adding something that browns quickly, such as avocado, I’d prepare that immediately before serving rather than chopping it hours in advance.
Can I make vegetarian sticky chicken salad?
The honey, soy and balsamic marinade could also work with a vegetarian chicken-style alternative.
As I’m vegetarian, this is the sort of recipe that’s particularly easy for me to adapt when I’m making chicken for Stuart and Ben because I don’t need to create an entirely different meal for myself.
Just remember that vegetarian chicken alternatives don’t necessarily need anything like the same cooking time as raw chicken. Follow the cooking instructions for the product you’re using and make sure the glaze doesn’t catch while it cooks.
You can find lots more ideas in my Quorn recipes and vegetarian recipes collections.
What if my chicken is frozen?
This particular recipe is designed for defrosted chicken because you need to dice it and marinate it before cooking.
If you’ve forgotten to take yours out of the freezer, use my guide to defrosting chicken safely rather than trying to adapt the cooking time and hoping for the best.
Is sticky chicken salad good for weight loss?
It can certainly fit into a balanced diet, but I wouldn’t judge the whole meal purely by the fact that it contains the word salad.
Honey and soy sauce are both part of the recipe because they provide the flavour and texture that make the chicken so good. If you’re following Slimming World, WW or another particular plan, calculate the recipe using the ingredients and quantities you actually use and check the current guidance for your plan.
You can also change the size of the meal very easily. Have it as it is for a lighter lunch, add more vegetables if you fancy them, or serve it with rice or potatoes when you want something more substantial.
More chicken recipes to try
If you’ve got chicken to use but the sticky chicken salad isn’t what you fancy, have a look through my healthy chicken recipes for lots more ideas.
My chicken fajita pasta bake is a much more substantial family dinner, while the Moroccan-inspired chicken casserole is lovely when you fancy something warming rather than salad.
For another sticky option, have a look at my sweet and sticky marinade too. It’s handy to have a few easy marinades bookmarked because they can make the same basic chicken taste completely different.
Print Sticky chicken salad – Slimming World friendly recipe
Easy healthy chicken salad recipe
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 Portion 1x
Ingredients
400 g Diced Chicken
3 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar
3 TBSP Soy Sauce
3 TBSP honey 7.5 syns
2 Tomatoes
4 handfuls Salad leaves
1/2 Cucumber (diced)
1 small Red onion (diced)
1 Peppers (deseeded and sliced)
Low Calorie Cooking Spray
Instructions
Add Balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and honey to a big glass bowl and mix well.
Add the diced chicken and coat in the mixture, cover and for best results leave 5 hours or as long as possible in fridge.
Place your salad leaves on to 2 plates, add the sliced peppers, quartered tomatoes, diced red onion and cucumber.
Add the chicken to a wok on a medium/high heat with a few sprays of low calorie cooking spray.
Push round pan to ensure the chicken doesn’t stick for approximately 5 minutes or until all chicken is thoroughly cooked.
Remove from pan and pour chicken and any remaining sauce over salad.
- Prep Time: 5 Minutes
- Cook Time: 10 Minutes
- Category: Main meal
- Method: hob
- Diet: Low Calorie
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