Shortcuts to Healthy Meals

Busy, busy, busy. The next five to six weeks are going to be full of marathon training workouts, new work, blogging and social events, and travel. Keeping on an eating budget and making healthy meals is still a priority, so on our most recent Market Basket trip, we kept an eye out for some affordable shortcuts. The Market Basket in Woburn was in-freakin-sane on Sunday, I have to tell you. I witnessed one fight and got yelled at by an elderly man because apparently my cart was at an angle he didn’t like.

Don’t mess with me when I am picking out bananas.

As always, my paltry patience somehow prevailed, and we got some great stuff, including a rotisserie chicken that was on super sale. The smell of the chicken was pretty enticing, so it was easy to add one to our overflowing cart.

I already had a giant pot of kale and three bean chili set up to cook for Sunday dinner, so I decided on a Monday night chicken salad for the rotisserie chicken.

Chunky Chicken and Fruit Salad

The ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken, meat removed and chopped into chunks

2 medium apples, chopped

1 /2 cup each dried cranberries and dried cherries

1/4 medium red onion, chopped

3/4 cup Fage Greek yogurt (I used 0% because it was on sale, but I prefer 2%.)

Assembling this salad was, of course, very simple. I made it during my lunch break, added some salt and pepper, and let it chill until dinner time when I served it on a whole wheat ciabatta, also on sale at Market Basket. I also made a giant batch of simple roasted broccoli, mostly because I wanted to stand next to a 420 degree oven. And also because we needed greens, of course.

Everything about this salad said summer, so it was a nice treat. Lots of crunch and chew from the fruit, and it had a nice zing from the onion. I love Greek yogurt for recipes like this; I planned on adding a few spoons of mayo, but it just didn’t need it.

Healthy, simple, make-ahead, it was just what we needed. I have a dinner out tonight and another tomorrow, so luckily there are chili and chicken salad leftovers for the husband.

What are you eating this week? Do you have any shortcuts to quick, healthy meals?