Disclosure: Campaign through Mom It Forward. I was not compensated for event but a party was held for friends. Opinions are all my own.
If you have not gone to Chick-Fil-A in a while you are missing something HUGE. They just came out with 3 amazing new salads replacing the ones they had before on their menu. I know many of us are not too keen on change but this is a really nice change.
A few weeks ago I found out that I was going to be able to taste these great salads at my local Chick-fil-A and that I was to coordinate a lovely salad tasting party and invite friends of mine to join me. How exciting was that? Who was I to invite? Would everyone come?
I got in touch with the Chick-fil-A in Lionville which has an Exton address located in Pennsylvania. Maria was the marketing director and boy was she fun to work with! I knew most of the people I knew had small children and trying to coordinate a party at a specific time was going to be a challenge. I posed such challenge to Maria and she told me to tell her how many kids would be coming. Sigh. This was going to be great!
May 17th came around and 9 guests plus 3 kiddos came in tow. We arrived to a lovely table all so nicely decorated. There were stuffed cows awaiting at each spot with gift cards and nutritional information about the new menu items. Balloons decorated the area and the staff were waiting to serve us.
We all got a chance to chat and meet each other (since my friends come from different circles) and Maria started explaining what was going to happen. We were all going to receive FULL salad portions of each new salad. We were not obligated to finish each salad but we also had the option to take the rest home.
The salads came out fresh with hot chicken placed on top. We first received the New Grilled Market Saladwith guess what? Grilled Chicken. These were the rest of the ingredients:
A fresh bed of chopped romaine lettuce and baby greens, T
Topped with shredded
red cabbage and carrots,
Crumbled blue cheese
A mix of red and green
apples, strawberries and blueberries.
Served with Harvest Nut Granola, Roasted
Nut Blend and Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette (or guest’s choice of dressing).
The salad has 180 calories, 4 grams of fat and includes two servings
of vegetables and one serving of fruit.
Remember the croutons and sunflower seeds? Yes, those do not exist anymore. Now each salad comes witch specific crunchy additions. The Apple Cider Vinaigrette was perfect for this salad. My favorite part of this salad was all the delicious fruit, especially the huge blueberries. Not one ingredient stuck out.
A fresh bed of chopped romaine lettuce and
baby greens
Topped with shredded red and green cabbage
Carrots and mandarin
orange segments
Served with Honey Thai Almonds, Chinese Garlic & Ginger
Wontons and Honey Sesame dressing (or guest’s choice of dressing). The salad
has 330 calories and 13 grams of fat.
I believe this was my favorite salad! There was so many crunchy toppings on this salad and the dressing was a perfect compliment. Sesame oil is definitely one of my favorite oils for salad dressings.
The last salad introduced to us was the New Cobb Salad. I usually order a Cobb salad when I go out to eat. I like seeing the variety so when I saw all the delicious ingredients in this salad I was happy to see unique items.
Chick-fil-A Nuggets, sliced
Fresh bed of chopped romaine lettuce and baby greens
Topped with
shredded red cabbage and carrots
Roasted corn kernels, a blend of shredded
Monterey Jack and cheddar cheeses
Crumbled bacon, diced eggs and grape
tomatoes.
Served with Charred Tomato Crispy Red Bell Peppers
and Avocado Lime Ranch dressing (or guest’s choice of dressing). The salad is 430 calories and contains 39 grams of protein.
The dressing was very thick and tasty but I believe with all the ingredients already in the salad I would choose to go with the apple cider. Don't get me wrong. The Avocado Lime Ranch was tasty but I would choose the grilled chicken and use the Ranch.
Now the beauty of these salads is that they are practically customizable. You can substitute either salads with any dressing or ingredient or you could ask to leave out certain ingredients. I have already been told though that some of my friends, who went out the following week for salads, that their salads were not customized the way they asked, like leaving out the mandarin oranges from the Asian salad.
Each restaurant is a franchise and although it is stated that the salads can be changed it depends on each restaurant. My local Chick-fil-A would do ANYTHING to make the customer happy. They train each employee to make the customer happy so if someone does not want the oranges or cabbage, it will be left out. I am sure that if anyone had an issue that a manager would make things work. Each place makes 10 salads at once. Five to keep up front and five in the back.
We got to see the preparation area and it was wonderful to see what they will do to prepare salads according to customer's dietary restrictions.
What was the greatest thing to end the party? The cookie sundae! If you did not know, Chick-fil-A has a great list of desserts and among them was the fudgy and dense brownie, but now that was replaced with their chocolate chunk cookie. Instead of the brownie sundae now there is the chocolate chunk sundae.. Score!
Not only have menu items changed but the look and feel on the menu board has changed as well. It is brighter with a white background making menu items pop out. Each menu item has the calorie count and the nutritional content is provided for each customer upon request.
It is nice to see that Chick-fil-A has no fear bringing in new changes. These changes are for the best and hopefully it will bring new people especially because of these fabulous salads. Want to read one of my friend's experience? Read her post here: Kitchen Table
Want more info? Check out this cool video!
Want a chance to try these salads? Thanks to Chick-fil-A , FIVE readers will have a chance to win a Promotional card to try these salads in June and July. How great is that?
