Tuscan Chicken Salad

This bright and flavorful 20-minute Tuscan Chicken Salad with sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, and fresh dressing will have you dreaming of Italian sunsets. It's bright and crisp and fresh and everything a salad should be.

No excessive chopping, simple ingredients, and classic flavors will make this a fast favorite. It's also gluten-free, dairy-free, and paleo.

This Tuscan Chicken Salad. It's hearty enough for dinner, light enough for lunch, and bursting with all your favorite Tuscan Italian flavors. It's as if it were plucked specially from Tuscany and delivered to your plate.

The chicken, marinade, and salad ingredients are low maintenance. The dressing is where we spice it up. Feel free to swap out ingredients here and customize it to your liking.

For an alternative dressing and more mediterranean flavors, try my Tahini Dressing! And for more delicious gluten-free salad recipes, check out my Arugula Quinoa Salad, Vegan Pesto Pasta Salad, Tahini Pasta Salad, Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Chicken, and Salmon Quinoa Salad.

Serve this salad alongside a Gluten-Free French Baguette, Gluten-Free Artisan Bread, or Crispy Baked Cottage Fries for a simple yet filling meal.

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How to make it

Ingredients Notes + Substitutions

I keep the salad ingredients super simple since the salad dressing has quite a few ingredients! However it is super flavorful and worth the effort, and this recipe is quite quick considering the dressing ingredients are pantry staples.

• chicken - I like to use either chicken breasts or tenders for this recipe. While you can use leftover cooked chicken, the flavor is best when it's marinaded according to this recipe. If using cooked chicken, you can add the marinade flavors to the cooked chicken or incorporate them in the dressing.
• greens - I used crisp green leaf lettuce chopped into bite-sized pieces mixed with spinach. Any bed of greens will do!
• sun-dried tomatoes - Choose sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil for maximum flavor. I like Mezzetta julienned Sun-dried tomatoes. Chop them into bite-sized pieces if whole.
• shallots - I use shallots in the marinade and love the subtle flavor coating the chicken. However, you can also thinly slice additional red onion as a replacement.
• nutritional yeast - Nutritional Yeast is a common ingredient in my kitchen because it adds that cheesiness back into dairy-free recipes like Dairy-Free Pesto, Dairy-Free Mashed Potatoes, Dairy-Free Scalloped Potatoes, and Vegan Broccoli Mac and Cheese. However, you can replace it with parmesan cheese if you prefer dairy.

You also need red onion, kalamata olives, garlic, onion powder, olive oil, salt and pepper for the marinade and salad.

For the salad dressing, you also need coconut aminos or soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and dijon mustard.

See the recipe card for a full list of ingredients with quantities.

Step-by-Step Instructions

There are only four simple steps to making these seriously delicious Tuscan Chicken Salad.

1. Marinade the chicken: Combine chicken and marinade. Mix together well and set aside. The longer you let it sit, the more flavorful the chicken is. Sometimes I set it up the night before cooking, and sometimes I make it right away.
2. Cook the chicken: After marinading, add the chicken mixture to a skillet on medium heat. Cook, stirring on occasion, for 7-10 minutes, until chicken pieces are cooked through.
3. Assemble the salad: Assemble the bed of greens. Add thinly sliced red onions and about 5 kalamata olives per plate. Distribute the cooked chicken and sun-dried tomatoes on top. Add extra sun-dried tomatoes if desired. 
4. Dressing: Add all dressing ingredients to a jar and shake. Alternatively, you can whisk them together in a bowl. Divide the dressing amongst the plates -- each plate receives ¼ of the total dressing. Enjoy!

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