#SecretRecipeClub ~ Winger’s Grilled Sticky Finger Salad

Welcome to the April 2016 Group D reveal day for Secret Recipe Club! I hope you will take a moment to visit the Secret Recipe Club if you've never heard of it before - it is a wonderful group of food bloggers who are given a secret assignment of another member's blog each month and our goal is to pick ANYTHING from their blog to make and post about on our designated reveal day.

For April I received Traci's blog Burnt Apple and had a wonderful time scrolling through her blog and recipes. Traci has had to learn to adapt many ingredients to make healthy, tasty food and accommodate sensitivities and dietary restrictions for the eaters in her home. 

As I started browsing I was having a hard time getting very far without tagging everything: Bacon Cheddar Fries, Baked Pizza Crackers, Baked Mac 'N Cheese Balls, 5 Can Queso, Honey Garlic Meatballs and Rice, Little Caesar Italian Cheese Bread, Wingers Sticky Fingers, White Bean Dip with Parmesan Crisps, Baked Churros, Red Velvet Loaf, Cinnamon Roll Quick Bread, Crusty Hard Rolls, French Style Rolls, Under an Hour Cinnamon Swirl Bread, Biscoff Overnight French Toast Casserole, Crockpot Breakfast Casserole, Crockpot Creme Brulee French Toast, PBandJ Muffins, White Chocolate Peach Coffee Cake, BBQ Chicken Quesadillas, Chicken and Biscuit Pizza, Crockpot Creamy Chicken Quesadillas, Honey Lime Chicken, KFC Fried Chicken, Wingers Sticky Finger Salad, Andes Peppermint Crunch Cookies, Marshmallow Biscoff No Bake, Chocolate Toffee No Bakes, Pumpkin Toffee Cookies, Snickerdoodle Cookie Brittle, Biscoff Butterscotch Bars, Blended Root Beer Float, Lightened Up Texas Sheet Cake, Lemon Curd Bars, Oreo Dessert Pie, Taco Bell Caramel Apple Empanadas, Baked Biscoff Donuts, or Crockpot Ranch Chicken... Well hmm... where to start! It became quickly apparent to me that I could be very comfortable cooking just off of Traci's blog for the month of April. I settled on the salad pretty quickly though - I LOVE any excuse to enjoy an entree dinner salad this time of year with the warmer weather, and the combination of spicy and sweet sounded wonderful!

This salad was fantastic. What a lovely combination of sweet, spicy, sticky, and cool and creamy. The cheeses blended wonderfully with the tomatoes and tangy chewy cranberries. I really loved this salad and will absolutely make it again and again! It is a quick and easy work night meal if you throw the chicken in marinade before you leave in the AM, then just cook the chicken while you prep the rest of the ingredients, throw together on a plate and dig in (Traci's recipe suggests using cooked chicken which is a great quick option, but I liked cooking the chicken in the sauce and using a little more of the reduced sauce as "dressing" drizzled over the chicken). Yumm!!

Winger’s Grilled Sticky Finger Salad from Burnt Apple

Ingredients
Makes 4 Salads

Winger's Sauce
1/3 cup Frank's original hot sauce
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 TBS water

Dressing
1/4 cup ranch dressing
4-5 TBS Winger's sauce

Salad
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into thin slices
1/4 - 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (I used slices of fresh since that's what I had)
1/4 - 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I used an Irish white cheddar)
1/4 - 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 - 1 cup diced tomatoes
8 cups lettuce, washed, and torn into bite sized pieces

Directions

Make the Sauce

1. In a small saucepan mix together the Frank's Hot Sauce, brown sugar and water. Heat on medium heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool. 

Make the Dressing

1. In a small bowl, mix together the ranch dressing and 4-5 tablespoons of Winger's sauce to taste. Set aside for later use.

Make the Salad

1. In a tupperware combine remaining sauce with sliced raw chicken and return to the refrigerator to marinate for at least 1 hour. 
2. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat with about 1 TBS olive oil. When the oil is heated, add chicken with the sauce it was marinating in and cook for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and sauce is reduced and fairly sticky. Set aside while you prep the greens.
3. Arrange lettuce on plates. Arrange desired amount of cheeses, dried cranberries, and tomatoes over the lettuce. Divide the warm cooked chicken with a drizzle of the sticky sauce it was cooked in and drizzle with dressing.

 

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