When summer arrives, my goal is to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen. Lunch for me means that it is time for salad recipes. But forget boring “lettuce food” style salads. When I say salad I mean a bowl full of heart healthy goodness and an amazing dressing. This Hearty Chicken Sunflower Kale Salad is ready in less than 15 minutes and super tasty.
This post was sponsored by Eat Smart as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own. 
For another healthy salad idea, check out my antipasto salad with home made red wine vinaigrette. It is full of bold flavors.
Tips for Easy Salad Making
To make salads easier and quicker to prepare, I make use of a few kitchen tips.
- I always have leftovers in the fridge. If yams and grilled chicken were on last night’s dinner menu, I make sure that I prepared extra so that I will have ready fillings for the next days salad.
- Hard boiled eggs live in my fridge all the time. I will boil a dozen hard boiled eggs at one time. I keep them in an old egg carton and they are ready to add to salads.
- Nuts and Seeds are great add ins. I buy these in bulk and keep them in air tight containers. Both add lots of hearty goodness to a salad, as well as healthy fats.
- Salad Kits are my savior. I keep Eat Smart Gourmet Salad Kits on hand. These wonderful kits are packed full of ingredients to give you a restaurant style vegetable salad. They are chock full of goodies and so tasty. Each kit has a robust combination of freshly chopped veggies and flavorful toppings with a dressing that compliments them perfectly. I use these as a base for my salad and add some protein, nuts and roasted veggies, chopped eggs or avocados when I want to make a more hearty meal.
Imagine my delight when Eat Smart asked me to mention their products on my blog. Since I already use their salad kits often, my answer was a definite YES! Along with their request came a delivery of several of their wonderful salad kits. My only question was “Which one should I choose for today’s meal?”
These Eat Smart salad kits are chef inspired and each has a sophisticated blend of 6 or more superfoods. The flavors of the kits are so fresh and tasty!
- Sweet Kale
- Strawberry Harvest
- Sunflower Kale
Eat Smart is committed to clean ingredients and labeling. They have plans for all of their products to contain a “100% Clean Label” by the end of 2018! I love that all of their kits will be free of high fructose corn syrup, artificial preservatives and hydrogenated fats, and will have no artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners by the end of next year. (And nearly 90% of the Eat Smart products already contain a clean label so I know that I am eating healthy right now when I use them!)
The Eat Smart line of Salad Shake Ups come in ready made serving bowls. They are perfect to take to work. The Salad Shake ups have their own serving bowl and a lid that flips to allow you to add the ingredients and dressing and give it a good shake for a lunch on the go.
And look at the flavors! I can’t wait to dig into them.
- Avocado Ranch
- Tropical Lime
- Raspberry Acai
Let’s make a Chicken Sunflower Kale Salad!
Today, I chose the Eat Smart Sunflower Kale Vegetable Salad Kit and decided to add some of my own toppings to it. This salad is an amazing combination of broccoli stalk, green cabbage, kale, chicory, dried cranberries and roasted sunflower seeds, along with a honey Dijon dressing. 
I added some of my fridge left overs – hard cooked eggs, roast chicken, sweet potatoes, and raw cashews and I had a hearty salad that kept my husband and me full all afternoon long!
The sweet potato gives a nice bite of sweetness to the salad. Hard boiled eggs and left over roast chicken give extra protein to the meal and raw cashews combine with the sunflower seeds in the kit to give extra crunch in every bite.
Isn’t this chicken sunflower kale salad pretty? I can’t wait to dig into it. 
They say that you eat with your eyes first. Look at the colors from the sweet potatoes and eggs! So pretty!
Give this chicken sunflower kale salad a good toss in a big bowl and you have two very generous lunch time servings or hearty four side salads. I love to have a glass of sparkling water or seltzer water with a salad. It makes me feel like I am enjoying lunch in a trendy café instead of at my kitchen table or office desk!
We all know that fresh vegetables are an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Eat Smart Salad kits give you an easy and tasty way to add veggies to your meals. Which one will you try first? By the way – it’s perfectly fine to answer “ALL OF THEM!”
I enjoyed all 6 flavors of the salad kits. Eat Smart Vegetable Salad Kits are a conveniently delicious way to eat healthy every day. The salad kits provide consumers another healthy option for helping to reach personal wellness goals.
For more info be sure to check out Eat Smart on Facebook and Twitter and be sure to visit the Eat Smart website to sign up for their monthly e-newsletters. (You can subscribe under “Receive Exclusive Offer” on bottom right of the website homepage.)
Hearty Chicken Sunflower Kale Salad
This Hearty Chicken Sunflower Kale Salad is ready in less than 15 minutes and super tasty.
Ingredients
- 1 Eat Smart Sunflower Kale Vegetable Salad Kit
- 4 ounces of cooked roast chicken, sliced
- 1/2 large cooked sweet potato, cut into slices
- 1 hard boiled egg, quartered
- 1/4 cup of raw cashews
- 1 large white mushroom sliced
Instructions
- Place the vegetables from the salad kit into a large bowl.
- Add the sliced chicken, cooked sweet potato and hard boiled egg. Stir to combine.
- Sprinkle over the sunflower seed/dried cranberry packet from the kit and add the raw cashews.
- Give the salad a good stir.
- Drizzle over the included honey mustard dressing. Enjoy!
- Makes 2 generous lunch meals or 4 side salads.
