Ranch Chicken and Buttermilk-Feta Salad
Techniques for clearing out the veggie garden
Happy Friday, nerds! I hope you’ve all managed to stay cool this week. We here at CWD Ranch have doing our best to stay inside. But, when you’re dedicated homesteaders like we are, you’ve got to go out every day and tend the fields.
As many of you know, we’ve got zucchini and patty pan squash in the beds this year, and thus far we’ve had a bumper crop. We’re swimming in squash; we’ve got oodles of zoodles1! We’re sautéing them, grilling them, roasting them, giving them away — you name it. But, still, they keep coming. So, trying to figure out a new use case for these vining herbaceous plants, and trying to avoid high heat, indoor cooking, we decided to give them a try raw.
The recipe as follows is inspired equally by the NYT Pan-Seared Ranch Chicken recipe and this one for Greek Zucchini salad. The dressing is the real star of the show here, so feel free to mix up what you actually use it for2. Let’s get cranking!
In a medium bowl, mix together about one and a half cups of Greek yogurt3 with a half cup of mayonnaise. To this, dump in a hefty pour of dried dill4, some salt, and pepper. Give this a good mix, and then give it a taste. From here, you can add a splash of apple cider vinegar for kick, and then, a pour of buttermilk to thin it out a bit5. Pour about half the dressing over some chicken thighs6 and let it sit for about fifteen minutes while you prep the salad.
Dice up7 as much squash and zucchini as you see fit8 and add to a medium bowl. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas, add those to the bowl, and finish with one or two diced avocados. Give this a twist of salt and pepper. Mix into the remaining dressing some feta, and then dump most, but not all, of the dressing9 into your salad bowl and give it a good mix.
As you let the salad marinate, go ahead and heat up a cast iron pan with a little oil. Once it’s hot, drop in the chicken thighs, and cook for about 10-15 minutes10, flipping occasionally, until the outside is well-browned and the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the heat, spoon some salad into a bowl, drop in a few thighs, and top with a dollop of dressing and some extra feta. Enjoy — ideally outside11!
So there you have it. A quick recipe for a weeknight, and one that is endlessly adaptable. If we had some ripe tomatoes, I think those would have been a great addition to the salad12, peppers might add a nice crunch, maybe some cucumbers… olives for some bite. Feel free to go crazy! And this also only gets better the next day, as the flavors get to fester marry a bit more.
That’s it for the week folks. Enjoy the weekend, drink water, stay cool, and lift something heavy.
I think it would be great with a regular ranch-style salad, delightful on salmon, used a dip with crudités, or even just eaten with a spoon.
Or Icelandic, as we’ve been doing lately.
Or, if you have it, fresh.
Buttermilk also gives a nice tang.
Or breasts. Or salmon. Or whatever else your heart desires.
Or roughly chop.
Or need to get rid of.
You’re going to want to reserve some to top your chicken with at the end.
As always, let internal temp be your guide.
If you can stand it!
And will certainly be added next time we make it.