Unsurprisingly, starting a food blog can be detrimental to your diet. So I decided to be ‘healthy’ and make salad for once. When I invited friends round for a salad with sweet chili dressing and pesto, they were dubious, to say the least.

After tasting they openly regretted their rather vocal doubts now – this salad was delicious.

Empire Salad

Serves 4

You will need:

For the salad
Lettuce, washed and ripped into reasonably sized pieces.
2 red peppers, washed, cut into strips
2 Avocado’s, peeled and cut into 1cm wide strips
1 bag of flaked almonds
1 jar of your favorite green pesto (alternatively home-made pesto, but we were just too lazy)

For the sweet chilli dressing
6 tbsp sweet chili sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp freshly grated or ground ginger
a big dash of lemon juice
pepper and salt to taste

For the chicken:
5 chicken breasts, cut into strips
olive oil
salt
pepper

1. Heat some oil in a frying pan. Fry your chicken strips until cooked through.
2. Toast the almond flakes in a pan until golden brown.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the ingredients for the salad as mentioned above.
4. Combine all ingredients for the sweet chilli dressing. You might need to add more sweet chilli sauce depending on your taste-buds-preference.
5. Mix the lettuce and peppers with the dressing and serve on a plate.
6. Top with avocado, almonds, chicken and dollops of pesto.

Rating: 7.5/10