How to Cook Chicken in Bulk for Salads

Your life probably doesn’t leave you a lot of down time. Being a mom means you have to get the most out of the time you have.

One of my favorite tricks for carving out a little time during the weeks is to cook chicken in bulk so it is ready to go when I need it. Imaging having seasoned chicken in your fridge so you can quickly throw it on a salad (like our favorite Eat Smart Gourmet Vegetable Salad Kits), in a soup, tossed with some pasta, or grab some for a quick snack.

This is the perfect way to cook once and eat twice (or more).

I love throwing some sliced chicken on top of a salad. I use Eat Smart Gourmet Vegetable Salad Kits for a super fast lunch and the addition of some protein makes a filling meal that holds me until dinner.  I love that these chef-inspired salad kits are made with five or more superfoods and include everything you need for an amazing tasting salad.

You could just bake a bunch of chicken and call it good but that’s no fun. You’d get sick of chicken really fast that way.

What I prefer to do is throw together several quick seasoning rubs and making an assortment of seasoned chicken so I can change things up.

Homemade Rub Recipes

You can make these ahead of time if you want or just throw them together really fast right before you need them. Each of these mixes will make 2-4 chicken breasts, depending on how much seasoning you like on your chicken.

Asian Rub

• 1 tsalt
• 1 T pepper
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t garlic powder

Italian Rub

• 1 t salt
• 1 T pepper
• 1 T Italian seasoning

Grilled Chicken Rub

• 1 t salt
• 1 T pepper
• 1 T grill seasoning

That’s it. They are super simple but they give you a good variety to work with during the week.

How to Cook Chicken in Bulk

Now you could cook these on separate baking sheets but why give yourself the extra dishes? Use three pieces of foil to create pouches for each variety of chicken and seal it up to keep the juices in.

Since you will be reheating this chicken later in the week, you definitely don’t want to dry it out and cooking it in a sealed foil pouch does a great job of keeping it moist.

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Cover your chicken with your three different seasoning rubs.

Seal each foil pouch up to keep the flavors separated.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked all the way through.

I love having cooked chicken ready to go when I need it. This week I was insanely busy and often times when I have weeks like that I’ll make food choices I’ll regret later.

This week I made it easy on myself. I’d prepped my chicken the day before so I had it ready. I pulled out Eat Smart’s Asian Sesame Gourmet Vegetable Salad Kit and topped it with my asian seasoned chicken.

Lunch took only minutes to prepare and I had an amazing meal packed with superfoods including savoy, red, and green cabbage, carrots and kale and topped with cashews, sesame sticks and a sweet sesame dressing.

For more great lunch ideas be sure and sign up for the e-blast at the bottom of Eat Smart’s website found here or follow Eat Smart on Facebook.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.