Copycat Panera Spicy Thai Chicken Salad
When I have a favorite dish or meal from a restaurant, I can’t help but to try and make it at home. In this case, my favorite Panera menu item is probably the Spicy Thai Chicken Salad. I do love a good copycat recipe (see my copycat chipotle salad here).
To be honest I made the recipe from memory (I don’t know why because I could have looked up a picture) so there are a few things that are little different. 1. I used Kale instead of romaine lettuce 2. I used peanuts instead of almonds to top the salad. Other than that, everything is pretty much the same as what you’ll find at Panera.
So I started out with a bed of kale and topped it with cilantro, roasted carrots and red pepper, edamame, peanuts, chicken breasts and the Spicy Thai Peanut Dressing.
Not going to lie I went into this salad thinking it was going to be just okay, but I surprised myself on this one! I hope you enjoy it as well.
Makes 4 Servings
Ingredients
1 c red peper, finely chopped (1 pepper)
1c carrot, finely chopped (2 large carrots)
olive oil
salt & pepper taste
2 chicken breasts
1 8oz bag frozen shelled edamame
8 oz bag shredded kale
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
1/3 c peanuts, roughly chopped
Spicy Thai Peanut Dressing (my 4 ingredient recipe here)
Directions
Preheat your oven to 400F.
On a baking sheet, spread out you red pepper and carrot. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Put into the oven for a total of 35 minutes.
Meanwhile on a separate baking sheet place your chicken. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Put into the oven when there is 20 minutes baking time left for your veggies and bake for that remaining 20 minutes.
Meanwhile prepare your edamame according to the package directions and toss your kale and cilantro together.
Serve your kale and cilantro mixture topped with the roasted red pepper and carrot, sliced chicken, edamame, peanuts and the Spicy Thai Peanut Dressing.
Notes
Gluten-free: This recipe is gluten-free.
Dairy-free: This recipe is dairy-free.
Kale: The original dish uses romaine so feel free to substitute.
Peanuts: The original dish uses almonds so feel free to substitute.