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Everything you crave from a crunchy and filling Caprese salad topped with juicy grilled chicken breasts seasoned to perfection.
Best Chicken Avocado Caprese Salad Recipe
While traditional Caprese salad is just tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, we're upping the ante and turning it into a meal by building a green base, topping it with juicy grilled chicken, and, if that wasn't enough, ripe avocado slices.
This salad with chicken is very filling and can be a stand-alone meal, which I often make for dinner, served with some rustic bread
Ingredients
This recipe calls for the classic Caprese salad ingredients: fresh tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and fresh basil, plus Romaine lettuce, avocado (or homemade guacamole), and chicken. I cook the chicken pieces in a pan with blackened seasoning, but you can also use leftover baked chicken breasts from dinner or rotisserie chicken. Finally, a white wine vinaigrette to drizzle over this salad.
How to Make Chicken Caprese Salad
This chicken Caprese salad with avocado is a 3-part recipe as you’ll see in the video below and in the following steps:
- Make the vinaigrette.
If you're making the white wine vinaigrette in the recipe or my Balsamic vinaigrette, make the dressing and refrigerate it for up to a week. - Cook the chicken.
Season the chicken breasts and cook them. Remove them from the pan onto a plate. Wait to slice them until you're ready to plate the salad. - Assemble the salad.
Build the salad base in one large salad bowl or four individual plates. Top with the other salad ingredients, slice the chicken and place it on top, and drizzle with vinaigrette.
Laura’s Tips for the Best Chicken Caprese Salad
A major component of a Caprese Salad is the tomatoes, and while the traditional recipe uses heirlooms, steak tomatoes, or Roma tomatoes, grape and cherry tomatoes can also be used since they are sweet and available year-round.
A salad that has a lot of toppings and textures, like this one, pairs great with vinaigrettes like citrus vinaigrette, a maple Dijon vinaigrette, red wine vinaigrette, Champagne vinaigrette, or a Balsamic vinaigrette. Their acidic base balances out the sweetness from the other ingredients.
Leftovers make a terrific healthy office lunch the next day. The key to keeping grilled chicken salad leftovers fresh is not to toss the lettuce with the salad dressing; only drizzle what you need onto each plate. This way, you can save leftovers in a meal prep container, the vinaigrette in a small dressing container, which you’ll drizzle over the salad just before eating.
Healthy Salad Lunch Recipes
If you’re into salads, other favorites are these farro chicken bowls, Santa Fe chicken salad, Buffalo chicken salad, salmon Nicoise salad, and Thai chicken lettuce cups.
Chicken Caprese Salad with Avocado
Watch how it’s made:
Ingredients
White wine or champagne vinaigrette:
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 tablespoons Dijon Mustard
- ¼ cup champagne or white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
For the Salad:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 ½ teaspoons blackened seasoning
- 1 tablespoon butter or olive oil
- 1 large head of romaine, washed and chopped
- 1 avocado, sliced
- 1 ½ cups cherry tomatoes, halved
- ¾ cup bocconcini mini mozzarella, halved
- ¼ cup basil shreds
Instructions
Make the salad dressing:
- Place all the vinaigrette ingredients, except the olive oil inside a blender. Blend until smooth.
- With the blender running, slowly pour the olive oil into blender jar, until it's emulsified -once it looks creamy. Alternatively, you can finely chop the garlic clove and simply combine all the ingredients inside a mason jar and shake venously.
- Transfer the salad dressing into a salad dressing container or pitcher and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to a week.
Cook the chicken:
- On a flat surface, pat dry the chicken breasts. Distribute the seasoning on both sides of the chicken breasts.
- Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, melt the butter. Place the chicken breasts on the pan and cook the first side for 7 minutes. Flip the chicken breasts over and cook for another 7 minutes on the other side, until the internal temperature reaches 165F. Cooking time on the second side will vary by the thickness of the thicken breast. Once cooked, transfer the chicken from the pan onto a board and let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing. This helps retain the chicken juices.
Assemble the salad:
- In a large salad bowl, make a base with the chopped Romaine. Top it with cherry tomatoes, mini mozzarella balls, sliced avocados, and sliced chicken breasts.
- Drizzle ½ cup salad dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Add more salad dressing if desired.
Meal prep this salad:
- Layer all the salad ingredients inside 4 meal prep containers except for the sliced avocado. Pack about 2 tablespoons of salad dressing inside four small, lidded containers. On the morning of, slice ¼ of an avocado and place it on top of the salad. Drizzle salad dressing right before enjoying it for lunch.
Sarah says
I could eat the chicken on this caprese salad every day.
Laura says
This was delicious however there was no balsamic in the dressing. Am I missing something?
Laura Fuentes says
You did not! I updated the recipe card and photos when I made it recently with the white wine vinaigrette but you can also use a balsamic vinaigrette instead. Thanks for catching that!
Mel says
Curious how you stop the avocado going brown if you make ahead?
Laura Fuentes says
Whenever I prep this salad ahead, I don’t add the avocado until just before serving.
Kim says
YUM this chicken caprese salad is nothing short of amazing.
Jenna says
This chicken caprese salad version was a winner! I meal prepped it for the week and put the dressing in containers like you suggested. Thanks!
Laura Fuentes says
I’m glad this was a success for you Jenna!