So I haven’t been to a Wendy’s since the 80s probably but I saw this strawberry summer salad they offer and thought “I could totally make this vegan!”. Truth be told, I often think this about a lot of things but I thought about using store bought ingredients that could make this easily and still be super tasty – and tasty it is!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Fresh strawberries
- Salad greens
- Vegan chicken & bacon
- Vegan Parmesan cheese
- Glazed pecans or almonds
- Vinaigrette
This really isn’t what I consider to be a recipe as such but an assembly of ingredients which technically is a recipe but you know what I mean. All you really have to do is cook the vegan chicken and bacon and put everything together. Ozo makes an applewood smoked bacon as well which is what’s used in the Wendy’s recipe but use your favorite. Kids could also help make this as it’s so easy so get them cooking young!
I used the new Ozo Foods plant based bacon and their garlic & herb chicken cutlets and just pan fried them in the same pan sprayed with a little oil until they were crispy on both sides then let them cool slightly and then chopped them up.
After the vegan chicken and bacon is cooked, all you have left to do is to assemble the salad and start digging in! I used Trader Joe’s seasonal strawberry basil vinaigrette (love it) but any will do. Wendy’s uses a champagne vinaigrette but use your favorite. You can find glazed nuts in most supermarkets but you can leave them out if you’d like or are allergic. Wendy’s uses glazed almonds but I could only find pecans which I prefer actually. This salad is delicious! The tart strawberries marry perfectly with the bacon and chicken and the sweet and crunchy nuts with the musky cheese all blend together in perfect harmony. I wish Wendy would go vegan but she made a good salad. Props Wendy. Check out my video below!