Chicken & Bacon Salad

Try this Keto Chicken & Bacon Salad in place of your typical garden salad. It’s packed with the high-fat, low-carb ingredients you’re looking for.

» For more great salads, check out this Low-Carb Burger in a Bowl or Easy Keto Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

I love a simple chicken salad for lunch, but I have to admit that I get a little bored of the regular chicken, tomato, and cucumber I usually put it in. This Chicken & Bacon Salad is packed with flavorful ingredients that spice it up!

You might also like this chicken salad with no mayo, which has an avocado herb dressing, raspberries, and macadamia nuts.

Eating a garden salad for lunch is great for a low-carb diet, as long as you mind the veggies you use so you don’t go overboard with the carbs. But often I find myself reaching to balance the fat ratios in my diet. That’s where this salad shines.

What Ingredients To Add

This chicken bacon salad has many different textures and flavors to make it nicely balanced. You’ll find some crunchy bits, some fatty cheese, and acidic tomatoes. If there’s an ingredient you don’t like, you can always find a great replacement.

Wild lettuce mix – A wild lettuce mix gives a lot of color, flavor and texture to the salad because all the leaves are different, however I also like to use arugula for this salad. You can substitute for another type of lettuce or even with baby spinach, if you want.

Chicken thighs – I like to use boneless skinless chicken thigh meat because it has more flavor and isn’t as dry, but chicken breast is fine too.

Bacon – One to two strips of bacon per salad. I use an uncured, nitrate free, sugar free bacon.

Tomatoes – Feel free to use cherry tomatoes or any type of garden tomato you like.

Blue Cheese – a little bit of crumbled blue cheese adds a lot of flavor and some fat to the salad. It’s very soft, which balances the crunchy bacon.

Sugar-free vinaigrette dressing – You can easily make your own dressing by mixing olive oil with red or white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and a dash of red pepper flakes, if you like them. You can also add a sprinkle of sugar substitute if you like a sweeter dressing.

How to Make a Chicken Bacon Salad

I like to start by making the vinaigrette so I can put it in the fridge to set up and chill a little bit while I’m making the salad. To mix the dressing, combine the oil, vinegar, Dijon, and seasonings in a small jar. Whisk vigorously with a small whisk or put on the lid and shake until the oil and vinegar emulsify. Put it in the fridge for a few minutes.

Next, season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat a skillet over medium heat, add a little bit of cooking oil to the pan. When hot, put the chicken and bacon in and cook for about 6 minutes per side, until cooked through.

The amount of time it takes will vary based on the thickness of your chicken. Make sure it reaches 165° F. Remove the chicken and bacon strips from the pan and allow it to cool before chopping.

Divide the lettuce among the bowls, add the blue cheese, tomatoes, chopped chicken and bacon. Drizzle on the vinaigrette. Do a little toss to incorporate all the ingredients. I also like to top the salad with a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper.

You might also trey this easy keto Caesar dressing or keto blue cheese dressing for something a little different.

Substitutions & Variations

This salad is simple, but delicious, and it checks all the boxes for a keto lunch. Plus you can mix it up very easily by adding different ingredients and substitutions, so your salad can be different every time.

Some of the variations I recommend are:

• Use feta cheese
• Add chorizo
• Add onions
• Make a basil pesto vinaigrette
• Add chopped boiled eggs
• Substitute the bacon with ham

Tools Used in this Recipe

Here are the tools we used in this recipe. These are affiliate links that lead to Amazon or another website that we use.

• 8 oz mason jar
• Mini whisk
• Frying pan
• No sugar added, nitrate free, uncured bacon
• Erythritol sugar substitute

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I’m a huge fan of the 100% grass-fed, organic meat from FarmFoods. It’s a great way to get healthy meat you can trust straight from the farmers, delivered to your door. You choose the meat you want. All the meat is humanely raised and never given antibiotics or added hormones. I appreciate the peace of mind that gives.

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04/04/2024