Blueberry Chicken Salad

Chicken salad is a CK staple recipe. We have quite a few! Chicken salad is the perfect, fast meal prep and easy to take on the go meal that fills all the CK meal habits. Needless to say, we are big fans of chicken salad!

Blueberry Balsamic + Rosemary Olive Oil from J. Olive Co. gives chicken salad a new twist and we think it is absolutely delicious!

But this chicken salad was what I call a “happy accident.” My happy accidents usually happen when I completely bomb an original idea for a recipe, but then out of the ashes I become inspired to salvage it.

Originally I planned to do a marinated, bone-in spilt chicken breast with blueberry balsamic, rosemary oil, salt, garlic cloves, and fresh rosemary. I thought it would turn out fantastic, but it ended up being under seasoned. So instead of wasting the chicken, I thought it would be good to add more seasoning and “things” for a chicken salad. And wholah! Blueberry chicken salad was born!

And I think you are going to love it. I know I do!

Black Eyed Peas

Instant Black Eyed Peas couldn’t be any easier to prepare! It’s the perfect plop-n-drop side dish, especially for your New Year menu!

Ingredients

1 pound dried black eyed peas
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
6 cups bone broth
1 lb chopped ham
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Put all ingredients in Instant Pot. Manually set for 30 minutes, once timer goes off let peas stay in pot for an additional 12 minutes. Release steam.

Check out more of our simple, healthy recipes here. And don’t forget to check out our upcoming Clean Kitchen 12 Week Challenge!

Cranberry Pear + Persian Lime

A good sauce is everything to me…really. This combo created a sauce that is so versatile! The J. Olive Co. Cranberry Pear Balsamic and Persian Lime Olive Oil is one combo you will get so much use out of. I made a sweet and sticky hot sauce, a divine Dijon Balsamic Vinaigrette with a chicken salad, a sweet potato mash, even a Strawberry Compote with oatmeal! I went all over the place with different ideas. Let’s dig in!

Espresso Balsamic + Harissa Olive Oil

This combo = FLAVOR BOMB. Maybe it’s because I made so many different meal ideas using the same ingredients, but came out with 3 different flavors. I did a sweet bite, Korean-inspired Bibimbap, and American BBQ—the sauuuuuuuce and I gave you 3 different uses for just the sauce! You will get a lot of use out of this combo. The J. Olive Co. Espresso Balsamic reminds me a lot of a deep chocolate flavor and the J. Olive Co. Harissa Olive Oil (new flavor!) has a smokey, but not too hot kick. The Harissa could be subbed out for Chipotle (smokey and mild) or the Baklouti (extremely hot). This combo is perfect for savory or sweet recipes and I have served you up with both! Let’s begin.

We will start with a dessert of sorts…

Walnut Butter and Apples

EspressoWalnutButterApples_single_LogosWEB

This is so simple I can’t believe I have never tried other nut butters. Honestly, this could work with many other J. Olive Co. dark balsamics! I used walnuts just because of the healthy Omega-3 essential fats it offers. Check out a quick video on how I made the walnut butter!

CK Meal Prep: 3 Recipes in 20 Minutes!

Crockpot Gyro Steak • CK Veggie Soup • Chicken Parm Bake

Download a complete menu, recipes and grocery list. I also included some extra meals to think about, as well as a sample day of food using the plan. I hope this helps all you new meal-preppers out there!

PDF Download: Crockpot Gyro Steak • CK Veggie Soup • Chicken Parm Bake_GroceryListRecipes_PDF

CK Super Soups!

When the weather starts to get cooler (or in South Mississippi it gets cooler and hot all in the same day), we start wanting to pull out the sweatshirts a get cozy! It’s soup season!

At Clean Kitchen, we like to get a lot of bang for our buck when it comes to the food we eat. One way to really amp up the nutritional profile of a soup is to use real-deal bone broth. No, not the box stock or broth you can buy at the store. Bone broth has become pretty popular and for good reason, it is LOADED with nutrients and minerals that only comes from the slow cooking of the bones.

But before you turn your nose up at the thought of drinking bone broth hear me out. This is what your grandmothers and great-mothers used in their stocks for soups back in the day. You know the whole “eat chicken noodle soup when you sick idea?” Well, that is actually when people used bone broth for their soups. Nowadays the canned stock kind doesn’t have anything remotely close to the nutrients of bone broth soups and will not help you kick that nasty cold!

If you need a little more information on the healing powers of bone broth, check out this article. And if you are interested in learning how to make you own bone broth it is pretty simple. Check out my first experience making bone broth and the recipe I used here! Otherwise grocery stores like, Corner Market in Hattiesburg do sell Bone Broth!

If you can not find bone broth, these soups will work with regular stock and taste just fine.

The nutritional profile will change though. Just use what ever you have because these soups are AMAZING with either. Click on the links below for the recipes!

My First Bone Broth

Bone broth is getting super popular. I’ll admit, I never really gave it much thought until recently when a Clean Kitchen client, Carly, asked me if I had any good soup recipes. Carly was in the middle of the CK 12 Week Challenge and about to have a procedure where her recovery required her not to eat solid food for 2 weeks! Talk about a doozy right smack in the middle of her 12 Week Challenge. It was just what I needed to to get inspired. Carly, just so you know, you inspired me to think outside my comfort zone and dig a little deeper into making clean eating work, even when faced with a “mush diet.”

Veggie Soup

This is a revamp of the Fit Kids Kitchen Beefy Soup recipe. Same great flavor, just a little lower fat and lower carb. We promise you will want more than one bowl of this! To make this a nutritional powerhouse, we use locally made beef bone broth, by Lisa Phelps in Hattiesburg, Ms.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15-20 minutes

Servings: 8 servings

Kellar’s Chicken Salad

Super simple and delicious! For an on-the-go lunch, try this on top of a salad and more veggies or make it into a whole wheat wrap. This is a perfect snack on top of sliced apples or cucumbers. It also fills all the Clean Kitchen Meal Habits, protein serving, plant serving, and fat serving! Learn more about these simple, yet effective habits in the Clean Kitchen 12 week Challenge!

Crock Pot Lentil Taco Stew

This turned out so good! I have been wanting to add lentils to my menu for some time, but just never made the effort. Our CK recipes are all about easy, no hassle cooking so I knew crock pot was the way to go for this one. Just plop everything together, set it and forget it.

Crock Pot Lentil Taco Stew

Ingredients:

2 cups lentils, rinsed – I used red lentils
2 chicken breast
4 cups chicken stock
1 onion chopped – I used frozen chopped onion
2 – 15 oz cans diced tomatoes