lemon-parm chicken, quinoa, & kale salad

cook once, eat all week!

Many of you are familiar with my viral Good Mood Food plans, which always have a resurgence in popularity this time of year, when resolutions are being set and especially nutritious fare is beckoning. (And if you’re not familiar with them, keep reading — I’ll explain!)

One of the most popular recipes from Good Mood Food v.1 was my Lemony Kale, Chicken, and Quinoa Salad, so for our first recipe of 2025, I’m sharing an even quicker and easier riff on that salad — one that can feed a crowd for dinner or feed YOU all week long. Thanks to its base of kale, this meal truly gets better as it sits! While a pre-dressed romaine or Bibb lettuce salad would turn into a soggy waste of food hanging out in the fridge for multiple days, a leftover kale salad makes for a delightful treat day after day.

So if you, like me, are part sugar cookie right now and are looking to be part kale leaf instead, make this gigantic, crisp, refreshing, FILLING salad, and share it with your family — or eat it by yourself all week long.

WHAT IS IT? Quinoa is a nutrient- and antioxidant-rich seed that cooks and acts like a grain. You can use it as a sub for rice, farro, or couscous if you can’t or don’t want to eat gluten, or if you just want to add some extra protein to a meal — quinoa has roughly 8 grams of protein per cup! It’s also high in fiber, which helps keep you full, aids with digestion, and helps balance blood sugar.

What I love most about quinoa though — especially in this salad — is that it acts like a sponge, soaking up all the delicious flavor of our lemon vinaigrette, making every bite so so good.

HOW DO I COOK IT? The most important thing about cooking quinoa is to IGNORE the cooking instructions that will come on your bag of quinoa. Almost every brand says to use too much water (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups liquid), which will leave you with mushy quinoa. Instead, cook your quinoa with a 1:1 1/2 ratio (1 cup quinoa to 1 1/2 cups water) for a much tastier texture!

WHAT’S THE SHORTCUT? There are now many pre-cooked quinoa options! Melissa’s Cooked Quinoa can be found in the refrigerated section of some stores, and I’ve seen many microwaveable quinoa options on the market. So check your store for those if you’re looking to save time. I love this one from Thrive if you’re a member. (If you’re not a member and you want to be, you can use this link for 30% off your first order and a $60 free gift — this is not sponsored, I just really love Thrive.)

Once you taste the magic of this perfect meal-prep salad, I know you’ll want to make more. Kale and cabbage are my only tried and true good-all-week salad greens, but you can mix up the toppings for variety! Here are a few other salad combos:

• Kale + steak + farro + dried cherries + blue cheese + candied pecans + lemon vinaigrette (aka the dressing in today’s recipe!)

• Cabbage + shredded chicken + brown rice + carrots + cilantro + thinly sliced bell pepper + cashews + this dressing but omit the Dijon, use lime instead of lemon, and add 1 heaping tablespoon smooth peanut butter

• Kale + cabbage + sliced deli turkey + dried cranberries + shredded carrots + quinoa + pistachios + apple cider vinaigrette (swap in apple cider vinegar for half of the lemon in today’s dressing)

• Cabbage + ground pork cooked with taco seasoning + a drained can of black beans + a drained can of white corn + shredded cheddar + scallions + cilantro + pepitas + crumbled tortilla chips + swap in lime juice for the lemon juice and add a shake of hot sauce to today’s dressing

I’ll often make a big batch of one of these salads and store it in the fridge in an airtight container to eat for lunches throughout the week — or in individual containers for George to take to work. All of these, including the recipe below, are great right out of the fridge!

If you’re not familiar with my Good Mood Food plans, here’s the scoop: A few years ago I launched a series of weeklong meal plans called Good Mood Food. There are three different plans and each contain 10 original recipes specifically developed to:

1. Reduce meal-time stress by providing delicious, simple, easy-to-follow recipes that have overlapping components designed to minimize your overall time in the kitchen.

2. Improve gut health and reduce bloat.

3. Alleviate anxiety on a cellular level by incorporating ingredients that literally feed our brains the nutrients they need to thrive and improve our mental health.

The plans include meals with zero refined sugars, a boatload of vegetables, and a mix of healthy whole grains and lean proteins (like today’s recipe!). They’re written similar in style to our really simple meal plans — like the one you got yesterday — but are ramped up a notch (they include clean breakfast and snack ideas, tips for setting yourself up for success, and a bunch of FAQs that I’ve answered in detail). I write most of my recipes with good mood food principles in mind — hence my love of spinach and kale, nuts and seeds, red bell peppers, miso, kimchi, etc.!

In case that sounds up your alley, here are the links: Good Mood Food v.1, Good Mood Food v.2, Good Mood Food v.3!

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Serves 4 to 6

Cook time: ~25 minutes

Tools:

• Large jar

• Small pot

• Large bowl for assembling and serving your salad

• Microplane or box grater to grate your Parm

• Chef’s knife + cutting board, if needed, to chop nuts

Ingredients:

Lemon Vinaigrette:

• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 1/2 cup lemon juice (roughly the juice of 2 small lemons)

• 1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard (omit if you hate mustard)

• 2 teaspoons honey

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or oregano

• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

• Several grinds of black pepper

Salad:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa (but I suggest doubling it and freezing a ziplock bag full for your future self — see notes)

• 1 1/2 cups water (I also add a heaping teaspoon of any flavor of Better Than Bouillon but that’s optional — also, if you double the quinoa, you’ll need to double this too!)

• 1 (16-ounce) bag chopped kale

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1 cooked rotisserie chicken

• 1 (10-ounce) bag shredded carrots

• 1 cup (4 ounces) grated Parmesan

• 1 cup golden raisins or dried cranberries

• 1 cup roasted and salted almonds, pepitas, or pistachios, chopped

• Optional: 1 cup of any fresh chopped soft green herbs you might have available (such as basil, parsley, or cilantro — I love parsley here and it has wonderful anti-inflammatory properties); additional lemon for cutting into wedges for serving

To make the lemon vinaigrette, add all ingredients (1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard, 2 teaspoons honey, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme or oregano, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, and several grinds of black pepper) to a large jar and shake vigorously until combined. Adjust seasoning to taste. (As always, that is the most important part of making a dressing — my perfect dressing is not the same as yours! Add more vinegar to make it more acidic, more honey to make it sweeter, more oil to make it thicker and less acidic, more salt to make the flavors pop, etc.) Dressing will keep in the fridge for up to 10 days.

To make the quinoa, add 1 cup uncooked quinoa and 1 1/2 cups water (or any kind of stock) to a small pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low heat, cover, and cook for 13 to 15 minutes, until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from heat but keep the lid on for an additional 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork. You’ll use 2 cups of COOKED quinoa in this recipe and have about a cup left over. Let the leftovers cool completely then store them in an airtight container in the fridge for later use this week (see notes for ideas).

Add 16 ounces chopped kale to a large bowl and season with a big pinch of salt and pepper. Use your hands to massage the kale until it JUST starts to feel damp — so squeeze it between your fists about 10 times. If you come across any pieces of thick stem while you’re massaging, discard them.

Now let’s tackle that rotisserie chicken. Pull the thighs/legs and wings off, store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container, and use them for another meal within 4 days. Pull the breast meat off (I discard the skin but you can shred it in with the meat if you’d like!), shred it finely, and add the meat right on top of the kale. Add 2 cups cooked quinoa, 1 bag shredded carrots, 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1 cup golden raisins, and your desired amount of dressing. (If I’m cooking this salad for dinner/to serve immediately, I use almost all of the dressing, about 1/3 cup! If I’m meal prepping it for lunches, I go lighter with the dressing initially then add a little more to each serving when I’m ready to eat it.)

Toss to combine. Add more dressing as needed until your greens are coated to your liking. Divide the salad between four to six bowls, and garnish with more Parm and a sprinkle of chopped nuts. I love lemon so much that I serve each serving of salad with a lemon wedge for squeezing over top!

(PS, I add the nuts at the end so that they don’t go into the big salad and get soggy in the fridge, but this is personal preference!)

lemon parm chicken, quinoa, and kale salad

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• My salad got soft in the fridge: This salad does get softer as the days go on, but in a tasty way — like I actually prefer it on day two or three. That said, if you like really bouncy, full kale, then you should dress it individually each day versus all at once on the first day!

• Double the quinoa: One of my healthy eating hacks is cooking once, but eating twice. AKA if I am going to the effort of making a salad dressing or cooking quinoa or a grain from scratch, I’m going to double it to set future-me up for success. You’ll already have a little extra quinoa, but if you double it, you’ll have enough to freeze in 2- or 3-cup increments for a later night when you can make fried rice (using quinoa instead of rice) or serve it under roasted sweet potatoes and chickpeas, or basically swap it in anywhere a recipe uses rice (except for one-pot rice dishes as the cook time is a little different!).

• Bulk it up: The quinoa, chicken, and nuts make it really filling, but if you want to bulk it up further, cube and roast a sweet potato or some cauliflower and throw that in there too!

• Do I eat this warm or cold? It’s great either way! If I’m cooking it for dinner, I’ll add warm quinoa to the bowl and am typically working with a warm rotisserie chicken. If I’m eating it for lunches, I’ll eat it cold straight out of the fridge!

• Love your leftovers: This prepped salad lasts in the fridge in an airtight container for 4 days! Here are ideas for how to use the extra quinoa and chicken you’ll have leftover:

  • Quinoa: Store leftover quinoa in an airtight container with a damp paper towel over it to keep it moist! In addition to the ideas above (under “double the quinoa”), you can throw leftover quinoa into any soup or stew, make burrito bowls with it, serve it with sheet-pan orange teriyaki steak and broccoli, etc.

  • Chicken: You can add shredded or chopped leftover rotisserie chicken to a soup or stew or use it to make quesadillas, chicken salad, a chicken pot pie, or another salad.

  • Use them together! Make a quinoa and chicken grain bowl! Add your quinoa and chicken to a bowl and microwave to reheat. Add a dollop of pesto, some greens, olives, hummus, roasted bell peppers, etc., to make a nice little grain bowl!

• I hate quinoa and don’t want a grain: Just omit the quinoa and double the nuts/pepitas.

• Feeding kids: For picky eaters, I serve this salad deconstructed with the chicken in a pile, undressed kale in another, nuts in another, quinoa in another, raisins in another, etc. Also fyi, quinoa is a great food for babies and toddlers! You can mix it with some hummus or yogurt to make it easier for them to spoon and eat.

• Vegetarian: Swap the chicken for a can of drained white beans (garbanzo, navy, Great Northern, cannellini). Add the beans and dressing to the salad bowl first for about 10 minutes to marinate them. Or just omit the chicken — quinoa is a complete protein and a staple of many vegetarians’ diets!

• Dairy-free: Use a DF Parm or omit it. Nutritional yeast would also be nice here but I’d use a quarter to half the amount. Start with 1/4 cup and add more to taste.

• Gluten-free: Already is thanks to the quinoa!

• Nut-free: Opt for a seed like pepitas instead of almonds or omit.

• EVOO: Olive oil or a neutral oil like canola, grapeseed, or avocado oil

• Lemon juice: Lime juice or a light-colored vinegar like apple cider, red wine, or white wine vinegar

• Dijon mustard: Whole grain mustard, yellow mustard, or omit

• Honey: Maple syrup or sugar

• Kosher salt: Sea salt, but use less!

• Thyme: Dried oregano, herbes de Provence, or Italian seasoning

• Garlic powder: 2 minced/grated garlic cloves or onion powder

• Black pepper: A little bit of red pepper flakes or omit

• Quinoa: If you want to use farro instead of quinoa — boil a large pot of water and boil the farro like pasta, per package instructions for how long it will take. Test it regularly and drain it when it’s tender but not mushy. Return the farro to the pot, cover, and steam for 10 more minutes. You could also use brown rice, white rice, or couscous — cook these per instructions on the bag/box.

• Water: Water works just fine! But if you’ve got it, any type of stock or water + Better than Bouillon adds a little extra flavor.

• Kale: If you’re meal prepping: use cabbage! Like kale, it’ll keep from getting too soggy. If you’re serving it immediately, you can swap kale out for arugula, mixed greens, spinach, or any lettuce.

• Rotisserie chicken: Any cooked chicken, pork tenderloin, or a can of drained white beans

• Bag shredded carrots: Using a bag of shredded carrots is a time saver but feel free to grate (or chop) whole or baby carrots if you have them in the fridge. You’re aiming for 1 1/2 cups. Omit if you hate/can’t eat carrots. You could roast cubed sweet potato or butternut squash or cauliflower if you’re looking for a different veg.

• Parmesan: You’re ideally grating fresh Parmesan or, even better, Parmigiano Reggiano because they taste best! But pre-shredded can work here. Cheddar, feta, or even blue cheese would all be great too.

• Golden raisins: Dried cranberries, dried cherries, or another dried fruit. Or fresh blueberries. Or omit!

• Roasted and salted almonds: Pepitas, pistachios, pecans, walnuts, cashews, or omit

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Editor: Molly Ramsey