Rosemary Roasted Grapes, Chicken, and Cashew Salad

I’ve fallen off the wagon with my weekly posts. And it might have had something to do with me falling off my eating healthy and splurging on some all of my weekends wagon.

I blame Thanksgiving. And I’m thankful that it’s only one day. Because if I had a good excuse to eat sweet potato casserole everyday, I would. But I’m not thankful that the day of getting work off to hang out with friends and family is over.

I spent Thanksgiving in Colorado this year and loved every minute of it. Growing up in Texas, you don’t get to see those things called mountains every day, and I’ve now figured out that it’s thanks to Colorado hoarding them all. Mountains served as my entertainment, my exercise, and even my kitchen table during my trip.

After the second round of Thanksgiving leftovers, my friend suggested making a turkey and cranberry sauce salad for the road (delicious). You know it’s bad when you start craving the green stuff. So we packed up our salads and stopped in the Red Rocks Amphitheatre to eat. My poor cell phone couldn’t do it justice, but the internet has done a little better job.

While we were stuffing our faces, we got to watch others working out by crawling…backwards…up the stairs of the amphitheatre. It seems like Coloradans use any outdoor structure as an excuse to exercise. Here’s what we saw (note the shirtless men).

So needless to say, when I returned home from colorful Colorado I was still in detox mode. And needed more of the green stuff. This salad is one of those great Sunday salads. The kind of salad that means meal and not side. Total cook time is about an hour. But prep time is about 5 minutes. So while everything is roasting you have time to unpack, clean up, and Facebook stalk (but those are just suggestions).

This salad is made up of three parts. All roasted. All spiced with rosemary. Even the grapes. And I have to say, I’m now a believer of roasted grapes. Hope you all had great Thanksgivings!

Roasted Grapes, Chicken and Cashew Salad

Servings: 3-4

Greens (I used baby spinach and kale)

For the chicken:

1 whole skinless chicken breast, divided

Paprika

Salt and Pepper

Rosemary*

Garlic Powder

Olive Oil

For the grapes:

Borrowed from: http://www.healthybitchdaily.com/?page=2 

Grapes (I used seedless black), 1/3 – ½ of bag

Rosemary*

Sea Salt

Olive oil

For the cashews:

Cashews, handful

Cayenne

Olive oil spray

Rosemary*

*Rosemary can be chopped fresh or dried. I used dried since I had that on hand, but I would probably chop it a little finer next time as I had some bites with the whole rosemary leaves in it.

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425F. Place chicken in dish and drizzle with olive oil. Once coated, rub with spices, using more of the paprika and rosemary.

• Place chicken in oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until cooked.
• Turn up oven to 450F. Place grapes on parchment lined pan (parchment paper optional). Drizzle with olive oil until skin is coated. Sprinkle with rosemary and salt.

• Bake for 15 minutes, until skins are crisp.

• Turn oven down to 375F. Spray cashews with olive oil. You could use melted butter but I tried to lighten this up.  Sprinkle with cayenne and rosemary. Roast for 8-10 minutes until darkened.

• Assemble spinach mixture, shredded chicken, halved grapes, and cashews. Top with dressing of your choosing (I used balsamic vinaigrette with a little lemon juice).