{"id":5551,"date":"2011-02-12T07:55:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-12T13:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=5551"},"modified":"2011-02-12T07:55:49","modified_gmt":"2011-02-12T13:55:49","slug":"greek-chicken-and-whole-wheat-couscous-salad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/12\/greek-chicken-and-whole-wheat-couscous-salad\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek Chicken and Whole Wheat Couscous Salad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve usually got a pretty good handle on our weeknight dinners with the help of weekly menu planning.\u00c2\u00a0 But one thing I frequently overlook are weekday (and weekend!) lunches.\u00c2\u00a0 I get bored with sandwiches and leftovers only work if I actually like whatever I cooked the night before (and since I tend to experiment with new recipes often, this is a big IF).\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure why I&#8217;ve had such a problem planning for lunches, but I have.\u00c2\u00a0 Recently, I started prepping a meal toward the beginning of the week specifically for lunches, and this has worked out great!\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it&#8217;s a little extra work, but it gives me a relatively healthy lunch I can look forward to.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ve usually got enough to last for 3 or 4 lunches.\u00c2\u00a0 So far I&#8217;ve done a teriyaki bowl with brown rice, baked buffalo chicken with asparagus, and now this salad.\u00c2\u00a0 Greek salad is one of my favorites!\u00c2\u00a0 This variation has the filling addition of whole wheat couscous.<\/p>\n<p>I sauteed my chicken using the method described below, but rotisserie chicken would be easy too.\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t really like raw tomatoes, but some cherry tomatoes or sun-dried tomatoes would make a great and colorful addition to this salad.\u00c2\u00a0 Lastly, I used a bottled Greek salad dressing, but next time I&#8217;ll definitely make my own dressing (so easy to do, and much healthier!\u00c2\u00a0 I just didn&#8217;t have lemons on hand).\u00c2\u00a0 This salad can be served warm or cold.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Greek-Chicken-and-Couscous-Salad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5624\" title=\"Greek Chicken and Couscous Salad\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Greek-Chicken-and-Couscous-Salad.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Greek-Chicken-and-Couscous-Salad.jpg 557w, https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Greek-Chicken-and-Couscous-Salad-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Greek Chicken and Couscous Salad<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ingredients:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 tsp. olive oil<\/li>\n<li>2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks<\/li>\n<li>Salt<\/li>\n<li>Pepper<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 tsp oregano<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 cup pine nuts (or almonds)<\/li>\n<li>1 cup whole wheat couscous, uncooked<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, sliced<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup bottled or homemade Greek dressing<\/li>\n<li>carrot pieces (optional)<\/li>\n<li>arugula or baby spinach<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.\u00c2\u00a0 Season chicken breasts with salt, pepper and oregano.\u00c2\u00a0 Add chicken to skillet and sautee until cooked through.<\/p>\n<p>Toast pine nuts in a small skillet over medium heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned.\u00c2\u00a0 Remove from heat.<\/p>\n<p>In a medium saucepan, cook couscous according to package directions.<\/p>\n<p>In a large bowl, combine couscous and all ingredients but arugula\/spinach.\u00c2\u00a0 Toss to combine.<\/p>\n<p>Serve over a heaping plate of spinach or arugula.<\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/12\/greek-chicken-and-whole-wheat-couscous-salad\/\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve usually got a pretty good handle on our weeknight dinners with the help of weekly menu planning.\u00c2\u00a0 But one thing I frequently overlook are weekday (and weekend!) lunches.\u00c2\u00a0 I get bored with sandwiches and leftovers only work if I actually like whatever I cooked the night before (and since I tend to experiment with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,48,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicken","category-main-dish","category-recipes","category-salad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5551"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5626,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions\/5626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}