Spring is here and we’re ready for warm weather, picnics,
and halal salads! This week, we’re making two types of tasty bread bowl salads
that are easy eats. To start, lightly fry up some onions, peppers, and
mushrooms and set them aside to cool. Then we use United Steaks of America’s
Halal certified strip loin, and fry that with some salt and pepper to a nice
medium rare. That’s the steak, but what about the chicken?
The chicken we cook very simply with salt and pepper as
well, but what we serve it with makes all the difference in the world! I took
some inspiration from Greek style salads and decided to toss together some crisp
cucumbers, sliced red onion, add some color with red and yellow peppers, and
cover it all in my personal favorite Greek style salad dressing. We also have
cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, and a block of feta cut into bite sized
pieces. My brother tells me all the time that, “no one likes kalamata olives
like you do.” While that may be true, I have to tell you, my favorite part of
this whole salad is how the feta, the kalamata olives, and the chicken all come
together with other ingredients.
But we haven’t discussed the bread bowl itself, and it is a
crucial part! For the steak salad; when we remove the bread to create the bowl,
we’ll cut that bread into bite size pieces and bake them on a low heat for
awhile to create our own croutons. Croutons are great in many things, and there
are a variety of different ways to make them. This time, we opted to leave our
croutons unseasoned, but a little bit of olive oil, garlic salt, and onion
powder, go a long way. For the Greek inspired salad however, we decided not to
use croutons but rather, we thought it would be nice to tear off a little piece
of bread and kinda use the bread bowl like a dish or just as a side for the salad.
Have any other ideas for bread bowls? Let us know on our
Instagram or Facebook!
1) Slice tops off of bread loaves. Remove internals of bread. Cut the removed bread into bite size pieces and lay out on a sheet pan and bake at 400° for 6-10 minutes or until crisp
2) For the Steak Salad, fry the onion, pepper, and mushrooms. Sauté until vegetables are lightly tender and slightly browned. remove vegetables to a mixing bowl and let cool. Meanwhile, place sirloin steaks in pan over medium heat. Salt and pepper the top of the steaks. Let cook for 1-2 minutes, flip steak, then add salt and pepper. Cook steaks, flipping every few minutes until Steaks are browned and a slight crust has formed
3) Add preferred salad greens to the sautéed vegetables and croutons. Mix salad and remove to one of the bread bowls. Slice Steaks on a cutting board and place on top of the salad
4) For the Greek Bread bowl, in a pan over medium heat, place 1 tbsp olive oil and chicken breast. Salt and pepper one side of the chicken and let cook for 1-2 minutes. Flip chicken and season with salt and pepper. Optionally, once chicken is golden brown add about ½ cup water, cover, and let cook for 2-5 minutes or until no pink remains. Remove to a cutting board, let cool, then cut into bite sized pieces
5) Combine all vegetables, the olives, chicken, and the feta in a mixing bowl and toss. Cover in desired Greek dressing, then toss again to coat. Place salad in bread bowl, serve, and enjoy!
