This easy Caribbean Salad is made with grilled chicken, fresh fruit, leafy greens, and a bright orange vinaigrette for a fresh and healthy salad that is reminiscent of Cheesecake Factory's Luau Salad.
Recreate a favorite restaurant meal with this Copycat Luau Salad. Just don't forget to finish off your meal with a slice of Classic Cheesecake or Instant Pot Cheesecake for a true Cheesecake Factory experience😉
I gathered inspiration from Cheesecake Factory's Luau Salad to create this light and fresh Caribbean Salad.
Cheesecake Factory's Luau Salad was a fresh salad made with grilled chicken, fresh mangoes, tortilla strips, and a bright dressing. Sadly, it has been discontinued for many years, but thankfully you can easily recreate a simpler dish at home using this recipe for Caribbean Salad.
This Caribbean Salad is filled with tender grilled chicken, fresh pineapple, mandarin oranges, crisp greens, and a slightly sweet orange dressing. Just like Strawberry Spinach Salad, Kale Apple Salad, and Mandarin Orange Salad, this recipe proves that fruit is absolutely delicious in salads!
How to Make Caribbean Chicken Salad
Step One: Prepare Orange Vinaigrette. Whisk together the ingredients or shake them together in a glass jar.
Step Two: Marinate Chicken. Place the chicken in a sealable bag or air-tight container and pour the ¼ cup dressing over the chicken, reserving the remaining dressing to dress the salad. Refrigerate the chicken in the marinade for 30 minutes up to 4 hours. You do not want to do longer than 4 hours as the citrus will begin to break down the chicken.
Step Three: Grill Chicken. Preheat grill to medium-high. Remove chicken from marinade and place on grill. Grill chicken for 6-8 minutes per side, or until the chicken has reached an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. Remove chicken to a cutting board and let rest for 5-10 minutes before slicing.
Step Four: Assemble Salad. Combine the lettuce, pineapple, mango, mandarin oranges, and red pepper together in a serving bowl or platter. Top with grilled chicken.
Step Five: Dress. This Caribbean Salad is best finished with some reserved orange dressing, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and tortilla strips.
Tips for Caribbean Salad
- I love the burst of flavor that mandarin oranges give this salad, but feel free to omit or use fresh, segmented mandarin oranges.
- Tortilla strips are found typically next to croutons at your grocery store but crushed-up tortilla chips work just as well.
- The poppy seeds and sesame seeds are completely optional but do add a nice crunch to the salad.
- Instead of marinating and grilling chicken, top this Caribbean Salad with leftover Instant Pot Chicken Breast or leftover rotisserie chicken.
More Delicious Chicken Salad Recipes
If you enjoyed this light and fresh Caribbean-inspired Chicken Salad, I would love for you to leave a comment below.
Caribbean Salad
Ingredients
Caribbean Salad
- 1 pound chicken breast
- 1 head romaine lettuce diced
- 1 mango diced
- 1 cup fresh pineapple diced
- 1 cup mandarin oranges rinsed and drained
- 1 red pepper diced
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- ½ cup tortilla strips or crushed tortilla chips
Orange Vinaigrette
- ¼ cup Orange Juice Concentrate defrosted
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Prepare Orange Vinaigrette
- Make the dressing by whisking the orange juice concentrate with the vinegar, honey, oil, and salt.
Prepare Salad
- Remove ¼ cup of dressing and pour over chicken. Marinade chicken for 30 minutes up to 4 hours in fridge, prior to grilling.
- Preheat grill to medium high. Remove chicken from marinade and grill for 6-8 minutes per side, depending on thickness of chicken.
- Allow chicken to rest for 5 minutes and then dice into strips.
- Toss together the lettuce with pineapple, mango, red pepper, and oranges. Top with grilled chicken and sesame seeds and poppy seeds.
- Serve the salad with reserved dressing and tortilla strips.
Nellie Tracy
Such a great recipe for summer! SO refreshing!
April
So bright and fresh! I definitely felt like I was relaxing on a beach somewhere while I was enjoying this.
Alice
I absolutely adore salads and anything with mangoes has my vote from the gitgo! 😉 Plus how genius is "mango salsa and honey orange vinaigrette "??? 🙂
Kristen Chidsey
Mangoes are the BOMB!! And yes, this dressing is pretty good as well!
Des
I've been looking for ways to shake up my lunches and this is the perfect way to do it. A hearty fresh salad and that vinaigrette sounds amazing!
Kristen Chidsey
This salad will certainly shake your lunch up!
Sabrina
This looks delicious, I recently made a pineapple vinaigrette over a chicken salad and it felt like I was away on vacation! This needs to be my lunch sometime this week 🙂
K.O
I made this salad for a birthday dinner. It was a total hit! Will be making it again for a couple more events!
Kristen Chidsey
Wonderful! I love hearing that!
Diana Rambles
This looks fantastic!!
Kristen Chidsey
Thank you Diana!
Denise Wright
This salad looks great....and the fact that my son might actually like it is a major plus. Great post!
Katie | Healthy Seasonal Recipes
I love this cause, and I will have to head to Price Chopper to buy some Driscolls berries! We could turn into monkeys too! I love it when my kids eat chopped produce righto off the cutting board. Great salad.
Kristen Chidsey
I love it that your kids are like mine and love fresh fruit as well 🙂 Love all this summer produce right now.