Southwestern Slaw with Chicken

For this salad, I wanted a slaw with a distinctive southwestern flavor and something easy I could make mostly using the food processor. I was pretty happy with the results, which have a clean, fresh taste.

I learned something making this: bell peppers don't do well in the food processor. If I were to make this again, I would just dice them. They end up expelling a lot of water, which I mopped up.

Drop the chicken and this is a great side dish to have with tacos or black bean soup. Certainly, you could tweak the vegetable combination. I think some cold cooked corn would be good in this, for example. Vegetarian might enjoy it with a can of black beans instead of chicken.

Southwestern Slaw with Chicken

For the dressing:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Juice from 1 lime
2 tsp. honey
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

For the slaw:

1/2 head green cabbage (not too big, use less if you have a big head), shredded
1/2 sweet onion, shredded
1 carrot, peeled, shredded
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeño seeded, finely diced
3-4 tbsp. cilantro, chopped

For the chicken:

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. chicken breast cutlets
2 tsp. dried oregano
Seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
Juice from 1/2 lime

1. Whisk together dressing ingredients.

2. Combine slaw ingredients and toss with dressing. Allow to sit for about 30 minutes.

3. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium frying pan. When hot, pat chicken dry and add to pan. Season with oregano, seasoned salt and pepper. Cook chicken about 10 minutes, turning halfway through. About a minute before taking out of the pan, squeeze the lime over the chicken and turn the chicken to coat both sides with lime juice. Remove chicken from heat, allow to cool, and chop.

4. Serve slaw in a bowl topped with chicken and extra cilantro for garnish.