Buffalo Chicken Salad

This Buffalo chicken salad features crisp greens topped with tender chicken breast pieces tossed in buffalo sauce, and drizzled with blue cheese or ranch.

I looooooove chicken wings.

Love ’em.

Back when my metabolism could handle it (a long time ago!), I used to spend way too much time in those chicken wing places that you usually find in strip malls. You know, the kind that feature all manner of sports on a big screen TV and not much else? Except the wings, of course.

There were always a dozen or so varieties of wings, but for me, it was all about the classic buffalo sauce. Not the crazy blazing hot stuff, but the tamer “medium” version. With blue cheese dressing for dipping of course, and the requisite carrot and celery sticks on the side (healthy!)

After I moved back to Canada from Houston, those places were mercifully no longer accessible to me, but that doesn’t mean I stopped craving them! So I have found a couple of ways to get the flavor without actually deep-frying chicken wings. One of the more virtuous solutions is this Buffalo chicken salad. Crisp greens are mixed with shredded carrots and celery, topped with tender chicken breast pieces tossed in buffalo sauce, and drizzled with blue cheese or ranch.

There are a few recipes out there for Buffalo chicken salad. Most of them either use the stuff called “Buffalo wing sauce”, or cayenne pepper sauce mixed with melted butter. I personally just go with straight-up cayenne pepper sauce (such as Frank’s Red Hot) for maximum punch! Blue cheese or ranch will cool things down, and it’s a super easy meal to throw together on a week night.