Pineapple Chicken Salad With Warm Garlic Dressing

On Thursday I took a break from work to meet the girls for a quick lunch at Purple Cafe.  I tried their amazing cranberry chicken salad and decided that I had to make it at home.  Sadly dried cranberries have extra added sugar so I substituted them for dried unsweetened pineapple.  Yum!

 
Ingredients:

For the Salad

• 2 chicken breasts
• 3 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled
• 1/2 cup dried pineapple bits
• 1 apple, cut in bit sized pieces
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup of chopped celery
• 8 cups of lettuce or spinach

For the Dressing

• 1/3 cup of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions: Cook the chicken using your preferring cooking method.  We cut it up into bite-sized pieces and pan fried it with olive oil and little bit of garlic and black pepper. Combine all of the salad ingredients other than the lettuce in bowl and mix thoroughly.  In a small sauce pan heat the olive oil on low and saute the garlic until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice and mustard.  Plate the lettuce and add the salad toppings and salad dressing.  Serves 4 (or 2 with leftovers). Enjoy!