Rosemary Chicken Salad with a Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

I am always looking for new ways to approach a salad with chicken for weeknight dinner.  I am a little grilled out, so I decided to take a hands off roasting approach. Rosemary and Lemon seemed like light enough ingredients that the chicken wouldn't feel heavy.  But the real wow is this warm bacon vinaigrette dressing  I found in a Cooking Light issue. This dressing would be a good addition to any salad, I"m thinking trying it with a Cobb salad next.

Servings: 2 -3                      Time:  30 minutes marinade, 20 -30 minutes

Rosemary Chicken Salad

Ingredients: 

• 2 Chicken Breasts, trimmed
• 3 cloves of Garlic, minced
• 1 lemon, 1/2 cut in slices, 1/2 cut in wedges for juicing
• 1/2 cup of Chicken Broth
• 2 tbs Dried Rosemary
• Mixed Greens
• 1 Red or Orange Bell Pepper, sliced
• 1/2 can of Cannellini  Beans
• 1-2 Roma Tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 cup of Feta Cheese, crumbled

 
Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pieces of bacon
• 2 tbs of Shallot, minced
• 3 tbs of Red Wine Vinegar
• 1 tsps of Dijon Mustard
• 1/8 tsp of  Sugar
• 1/4 tsp of Black Pepper
• 3 tbs of Olive Oil

 Steps:

1.)  Place the chicken, broth, Lemon juice and slices, garlic, and rosemary in large plastic zip bag. Let marinate for at least 30 minutes or longer if possible

2.) Preheat oven to 400. Place chicken in roasting pan and roast for 20 minutes in the oven, or until completely cooked.

 
3.) While the chicken is cooking, cook the bacon in a pan on the stove until crisp.  Remove bacon to a plate with a paper towel. Leave a tablespoon of drippings in the pan.
4.) Crumble bacon and add to the pan with the shallots and cook for one minute.
5.) Remove pan from heat and stir in vinegar, Dijon mustard, pepper and sugar.  Gradually add olive oil to the vinegar mixture, stirring constantly with a whisk. The mixture is going to look pretty gross in the pan, but its actually very light so it will toss easily with the salad.

6.) Chop the red peppers and tomato and toss with greens in a big bowl.

7.) Toss in the feta, beans, and bacon vinaigrette.  Serve topped with roasted chicken.