Winter weather can mean a change-up in your recipes, colder temperatures can make it easy to sit back and make a bowl of hot soup to warm up with a no fuss dinner, but what if we told you that can add a tropical twist to your winter recipes? Well, that’s exactly what we have for you this week with this delicious and refreshing citrus salad! But weren’t content with just making a tropical salad, we made a whole meal including tender and tangy citrus marinated chicken and coconut rice; this week isn’t just a delicious recipe, it’s a tropical vacation.

Now you might think that because this recipe gives you so much that it must be complex and needs you to spend your entire day in the kitchen getting it ready for dinner. Luckily for you that isn’t the case, many of the ingredients are pulling double duty so you’ll be using them throughout the recipe and that helps keep this delightfully simple for such a robust final product that you get to enjoy later! The fresh squeezed orange juice that you use for the marinade can go into your citrus dressing for the salad, we used the zest from the limes we used for the marinade on the coconut rice, and the salad will get juice in the dressing and slices of fresh fruit mixed in, so you’ll be getting a lot of use out of a few ingredients here! The marinade was simple and refreshing, and letting the chicken marinate in it for a few hours gives the chicken just the right amount of tanginess that makes this feel like a summer grilling recipe that you get to enjoy now instead. But if you want to get even more flavor for the chicken, any leftover marinade can be added to the pan after your chicken is done and cooked down to a tangy glaze. For the chicken itself, we went with a tried-and-true classic in Midamar’s halal chicken breast and by the end you will be enjoying juicy, tender, and flavorful chicken with a tropical twist from the comfort of your own kitchen!

But we aren’t done yet! We decided to go all out for this recipe and want to provide you with plenty of options that make a complete meal we think you’ll enjoy. The coconut rice we made as a side was made in much the same way you would make rice normally, with the addition of coconut milk mixed in so the flavor cooks into the rice and we topped it at the end with a little bit of lime zest to give a just a little bit of citrus flair that pairs so well with the fun and fresh flavors of the chicken and salad. And speaking of salad, if you’ve been on board with the recipe so far then you’ll really enjoy this because not only was there fruit juice in the dressing, but there’s fresh slices of orange and grapefruit mixed in with the greens. Every bite of this salad was so fresh and flavorful from the fruit and dressing while not being overpoweringly tangy or bitter and that’s the best way to describe this recipe ass a whole. While there is citrus in every part of this recipe, it’s never too much that it distracts from the other great flavors in the greens, rice, or chicken, but there’s hints of it throughout that makes this recipe feel just the right amount of bright, fun, and tropical that we need sometimes in the winter when the weather’s cold and the days are short.

And just like that, the recipe is done and you have a complete dinner that is consistently delicious throughout. Each one of these parts pairs so well with the others that it all comes together to make a dinner that is so complete and better than even we were expecting so we can’t wait for you to try it out for yourself. If you want to see more of how we made it, check the link to our Youtube, and if you like this recipe, and we think you will, we’re hoping you share it with someone you think might enjoy it or make your own additions that make it even better, and we’ll see you next time!