Do you love Chick-fil-A's salads, but don't love the price? We've got you covered with our copycat Chick-fil-A market salad. Get the scoop on all the tasty ingredients that make this the healthiest main course salad on their menu.
Are you a fan of Chick-fil-A's salads? You need to check out our reader's favorite kale crunch salad and our avocado lime ranch dressing.
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Why This Recipe Works
- Pounding the chicken thin with a meat mallet helps the meat become more tender and flavorful.
- Our copycat zesty apple cider vinaigrette recipe tastes even better then Chick-fil-A's dressing.
- The right techniques keep the chicken moist. After sitting at room temperature for 30 minutes, the extra marinade is blotted off with paper towel and the chicken breasts are grilled to perfection, then are tented with foil. This allows the chicken to rest, finish cooking, and stay juicy.
- The right combination of textures, from the fresh and dried fruit, blue cheese, candied pecans, sliced almonds, and granola, makes this copycat market salad so delicious.
Ingredients
Chick-fil-A market salad has a lot of yummy ingredients--some are optional--but it tastes amazing when you use all the ingredients. This recipe has a lot of different textures which makes it so interesting. Let's talk about the main ingredients.
- Salad Greens: We used spring salad mix but you can also use shredded romaine with baby greens.
- Fruit: We used fresh blueberries, strawberries, red, and green apples.
- Vegetables: We used julienned carrots and shredded red cabbage.
- Salad Dressing: We used our copycat Chick-fil-A zesty apple cider vinaigrette recipe.
- Meat: We used grilled marinated chicken breast to make this salad a main course meal.
See recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations
- Vegan: Omit the chicken and blue cheese, and sub agave nectar for the honey in the vinaigrette.
- Vegetarian: Omit the chicken.
- Nut Free: Omit the almonds and candied pecans.
- Gluten Free: Omit the granola.
- Oil Free: Omit the dressing.
- No Lettuce: Swap out the romaine lettuce or spring mix for kale and Swiss chard.
How to Make
Gather all the ingredients for our copycat Chick-fil-A market salad.
- Whisk the marinade together in a small bowl or glass measuring cup until well mixed.
- Pat the chicken breasts dry with paper towel, then place them on top of plastic kitchen wrap. Cover with plastic wrap and pound thin with a meat mallet, then transfer to a zip top bag.
- Pour the marinade over the chicken. Close the bag and squish the marinade around a bit with your hands to coat. Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 6 to 12 hours.
- Whisk the salad dressing until combined, then refrigerate until you're ready to use.
- Let the chicken rest at room temperature for 30 minutes, then pat off any excess marinade with paper towel. Heat the oil in a skillet, then add one chicken breast and cook for 5 minutes. Flip the chicken over only once. If the meat is sticking to the pan, wait a little longer, then try again.
- Place the cooked chicken breast on a plate and tent with foil for 10 minutes.
- Allow the chicken to cool before thinly slicing.
- Place two cups of spring salad mix on a plate or shallow bowl. Sprinkle on the shredded carrots and red cabbage.
- Add the blueberries, strawberries, and the red and green apple chunks. Add the optional toppings: raisins, craisins, granola, sliced almonds, candied pecans, and blue cheese. Arrange the chicken slices on top.
- Drizzle on the zesty apple cider vinaigrette and enjoy your copycat Chick-fil-A market salad.
Recipe FAQs
A 2 ½ cup serving size with half a large chicken breast is 839 calories, 54.2g of carbs, and 54.6g of fat. For more nutritional facts on this recipe, scroll to the end of the recipe card.
Chick-fil-A has two dressings paired with each of their salads; one is the lighter choice, and the other is more indulgent. For the market salad, the two dressings are the zesty apple cider vinaigrette and the light balsamic dressing. For this recipe, we decided to use the more indulgent zesty apple cider vinaigrette, as it is the one that Chick-fil-A recommends.
The Chick fil-A website describes this salad as "sliced grilled chicken breast served on a fresh bed of mixed greens, topped with crumbled blue cheese and a mix of red and green apples, strawberries and blueberries. Prepared fresh daily. Served with Harvest Nut Granola and Roasted Almonds."
Serve
Want a drink to round out your meal? Try our collection of copycat Chick-fil-A milkshakes. You'll love our frosted coffee, frosted lemonade, peach milkshake, cookies and cream milkshake, and peppermint milkshake.
If you're looking for other main course Chick-fil-A salads to try, check out our copycat recipes for Asian salad, lemon kale Caesar salad, spicy Southwest salad, and Cobb salad.
Store
Make Ahead: The chicken tastes better when it's marinated for at least 6 hours or overnight. Also, keep each ingredient in a separate covered bowl. This will ensure proper texture and will keep the salad greens the freshest.
Meal Prep: It's best to keep all the ingredients separate, and then assemble the salad that morning before you leave for work. Remember to keep the dressing separate so the greens don't wilt. The sliced strawberries keep firm for about 48 hours.
Leftovers: For the freshest tasting salad, refrigerate any leftovers in separate bowls. If you have any dressing leftover, it will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days. Shake the Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette well before using, as the oil and vinegar separates in the fridge.
Expert Tips
- Marinate the chicken for at least 6 hours, then let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before grilling.
- If it is sticking, don't flip the chicken over; let it cook a bit longer, then flip it.
- To get thinly sliced chicken, allow it to cool first.
- Don't assemble the salad until you want to eat it.
- Serving this to company? Let guests put on their own toppings for a customized salad.
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Recipe
Copycat Chick-fil-A Market Salad
Ingredients
For the Chicken and Marinade
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons black pepper
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
For the Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1 ½ tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
For the Market Salad
- 2 chicken breasts, marinated, cooked, and thinly sliced
- 8 cups spring mix
- ¼ cup julienned carrot
- ¼ cup thinly sliced red cabbage
- 1 cup blueberries
- 12 strawberries, hulled and quartered
- 1 cup Granny Smith apple, diced
- 1 cup red Gala apple, diced
- ¼ cup blue cheese, crumbled
- ½ cup glazed pecans
- ½ cup granola
- 3 tablespoons sliced almonds
- 1 tablespoon raisins
- 1 tablespoon craisins
- ¾ cup zesty apple cider vinaigrette
Equipment
Instructions
Chicken Marinade
- Pat the chicken breasts dry with paper towels, then cover in plastic wrap and use a meat mallet to flatten them. Transfer the meat into a gallon size zip top bag.
- Whisk the marinade ingredients together until well combined, then pour it into the bag. Seal it closed and squish the marinade around so the chicken is coated.
- Refrigerate for a minimum of 6 hours, or preferably overnight. Let the chicken rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before cooking.
- Remove the chicken from the zip-top bag and blot off the extra marinade with a paper towel. Discard the marinade and bag.
- Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive or peanut oil in a 10 inch cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Place one chicken breast in the skillet and reduce the temperature to medium after 1 minute, cooking for a total of 5 minutes. Flip once and cook the other side until the chicken has an internal temperature of 165°F. Repeat with the other chicken breast.
- Once each breast is done, tent it with foil, and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Once the meat has cooled, slice thinly against the grain.
Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette
- Put all the ingredients except the olive oil in a small bowl and whisk. Slowly add the oil while whisking constantly.
- Taste and adjust seasonings, adding a bit more honey, lime juice, or black pepper as desired. Store in the fridge until needed.
Market Salad
- Place 2 cups of spring mix on each plate. Sprinkle on the carrots and the red cabbage, then add the fresh fruit next (the green and red apples, blueberries, and strawberries).
- Add the dried fruits (raisins and craisins), the nuts (sliced almonds and candied pecans), and the granola. Sprinkle on the crumbled blue cheese and place strips of chicken breasts on top.
- When ready to eat, drizzle on the zesty apple cider vinaigrette. Enjoy your market salad!
Notes
- For the best flavor, marinate the chicken for at least 6 hours.
- Let the chicken cook a bit longer before flipping if it's sticking.
- Allow the cooked chicken to cool before slicing to get it to slice thinly.
- Keep the ingredients separate until you want to eat it for maximum freshness.
- For a customized market salad, let guests put on their own toppings.
- Marinade yields 1 ¼ cups. Vinaigrette yields ¾ cup.
Nutrition
Serving sizes and nutritional information are only an estimate and may vary from your results.
Kristie
Wanted to give your recipe a 5 star review! This tasted just like the Market Chic Fil a salad and I'm so very happy it turned out that way!! I actually ended up marinating the chicken for 2 days due to just being busy. And I completely forgot to add the apples! I look forward to adding that next time. I didn't use craisins and the granola I used was a honey Vanilla kind. It was delicious. Thank you for putting this together!
Emma
Thank you so much, Kristie! We're so happy that you enjoyed the market salad so much!
Heather J Salee
Is there any way to separate the calories into salad, dressing, and marinade so that I can figure out how to trim the serving calories down a bit?
Emma
Since very little marinade is absorbed by the chicken and the rest is discarded, the nutrition facts for that is almost negligible. Our homemade apple cider vinaigrette contains 196 calories per 2 tablespoon (30ml) serving, while the salad alone contains 479 calories per serving if it is assembled according to the recipe card. If you cut down on some of the toppings, it will save you even more calories.
Eko
This copycat salad is delicious! I ended up using chicken tenders and baking them instead at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. It came out perfect! So juicy and flavorful!!
Emma
So glad that you enjoyed it, Eko! Thanks for making our Market Salad!
Alex
The lettuce leaves are soft, and the vinaigrette is zingy and tangy. The granola adds a sweet, chewy flavor. Delicious!
Emma
Glad you enjoyed the salad, Alex!
Beth
This fresh salad is filled with juicy berries, carrots, and lettuce. The granola tastes really good on here, and the pecans are crunchy.
Emma
Thank you, Beth!