How do I make a chicken salad?

Boil the chicken breast in low sodium chicken broth. Let it cool in the fridge.

You could always buy lite mayo. Also, you it’s up to you how much you use. It will be healthier the less mayo you use but might be a little dry.

Use a nice healthy whole grain bread.

Lettuce and tomato always make it better.

Broil the chicken breast (or bbq). Set aside to let cool.

Coarsely chop any assortment of:
lettuce
onion
garlic
tomato
cucumber
parsley
pickles
whatever works for your personal taste.

Cut the chicken into small cubes, about ½ inch by ½ inch.

Add to veggys.

Add mayonnaise to taste and enough to hold the stuff together.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with crackers or crusty french bread.

I use the leftovers from a roasted chicken, (even a supermarket rotisserie chicken), and I pull of the skin, and pull the meat away from the bones with my fingers, then chop it very roughly.

I like to add:
One clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 or 2 Shallots, finely chopped
½ a sour green apple, chopped
A small handful of dried cranberries, or raisins
Handful of non-pareil capers with a touch of their juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/8 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice if you have it.
Enough mayo for binding, preferably home made
1 Tbsp Spicy Dijon mustard

Serve on red lettuce, or on toasted 12-grain bread.

Mine is very simple, but I always get compliments.

You can boil the chicken, but I hate the smell, so I bake breasts in the oven with foil over them so they don’t brown or dry out.

Let the chicken cool, then chop or pull into pieces. Add chopped celery (about ½ a stalk for each chicken breast), mayo until it is at the moistness you like, salt & pepper to taste and then (my secret ingredient) a couple tablespoons of lemon juice.

THANK you for this question. I never asked because, for some reason, I always thought it would be moded.

I love chicken salad and my wife is a vegetarian so we don’t have many cookbooks with recipies in it.

All of the above advice and ingredients are good especially the suggestion to use a rotisserie chicken since you said you don’t cook.

If you want to cut down on the amount of mayo just substitute low fat yogurt for half of it.

I think I’ll give @PerryDolia recipe a try.

I do a Chinese chicken salad:
1 rotisserie chicken
almonds or cashews, chopped
celery, thin sliced
shallot, minced

dressing:
mayo
Dijon mustard
black pepper
a few drops of dark sesame oil

blend dressing and add to chicken mixture.

@pdworkin has a great suggestion with the rotisserie chicken! Fresh Market has that in their deli case and it is delicious. It would be a lot easier to make, too.

@pkworkin – I am trying that!

I usually use leftover chicken. Chop up the meat, stir it in a bowl with chopped apples or dried cranberries, some toasted sliced almonds (I usually give them an extra chop to make them even smaller), garlic powder, black pepper, and just enough mayo to hold it all together. Not too different from the above suggestions, which I am certainly going to look at the next time I make chicken salad. I like the idea of Dijon mustard!

If you boil some chicken breasts instead of using leftovers or going with a rotisserie chicken, it takes about 20 minutes to fully cook.

If you can find champagne grapes at the store, they are wonderful in chicken salad. They’re very tiny purple grapes. They look pretty and taste so nice!

Chicken salad? For a slightly different take, there is this.

@MissAusten- That sounds really REALLY good.

My problem is amounts.

I am a very literal and poor cook. I stress out. I still read, check and re-check the instructions on Mac and Cheese. I just don’t cope with cooking well.

Curried Chicken Salad

You can buy cooked chicken and dice it. Or you can broil or bake a chicken breast.
(Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 min. or until just done.)

Dice the chicken.
Dice celery.
Dice about ½ an apple for one serving.
Chop ½ c. walnuts.
Season with salt, pepper and curry powder.
Mix in between 1–2 tbsps. mayo (just enough to hold it together.
Let the flavors blend in the frig for about 30 min.

I like mine served over lettuce.

(You can substitute 1 Tbsp of mango chutney for the apple if you like or use cashews [but eliminate the salt if the nuts are salted].)

@Bri_L I used to be that way too, but over the past several years of cooking for my family, I’ve gotten to the point where many times I don’t use a recipe, or can look at a recipe and know where I can make changes or substitutions without messing it up.

The beauty of something like chicken salad is that it’s forgiving. Just eyeball it, add what looks good to you, and you can’t really go wrong.

@MissAusten – Funny, I tried that and it was terrible. My problem is I add more of what I like, WAY more and less of what I don’t care about. I don’t have a concept for how that works.

Keep tasting while you are working, and add small portions at a time.

@pdworkin – I never tried that! This may sound stupid but I always thought I would get in trouble for it.

All good cooks are always tasting, tasting, tasting.

Yes, you can save a lot of time (but not money in the long run, but it’s not too much) by buying a precooked chicken from the grocery store. If you make it your dinner that night, you can use the leftovers for the salad the next day.

I love adding egg and pickle to any salad. My partner makes pickled eggs, so they’re always available and easy to pop into the salad mix.

If you are someone who likes eating a baguette, try bringing the mix in a container and make up little sandwiches. This makes for a great picnic idea too :)

To make a chicken salad, sit the chicken at the table, cut up some fresh vegetables, add dressing and serve them to the chicken! Sorry for the bad joke, but I’m on vacation and in a playful mood.

good chicken salad comes from remnants of grilled or roasted chicken. in essence, left-over chicken cooked from the bone for whatever first meal originated.

it’s up to you to add the essentials to cold leftover carcass.

1. sweet picle
2. diced boiled eggs
3. diced onion
4. diced celery
5. diced sweet red bell or green pepper
6. dash of sugar, salt and pepper to taste
7. dash mustard (optional) (mustard colors or yellows the salad)

serve over green leafy lettuce with savory crackers or salty chips.
or serve as triangular finger sandwiches with the ends cut off. very impressive for presentation.
make a sandwich too.

Abort!!: Do not use mayo! Not even lite mayo! Plain yogurt is much healthier and tastes tangier.

@erniefernandez – I took a sample at the pick-n-save deli (local grocery) and they used yogurt. Not only couldn’t I tell, it tasted fantastic!

Lift up his tail and..I thought you said toss a chicken salad

Try using a variety f lettuce leaves, baby tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion and of course bacon peices they taste yummy with chicken salad.
As for a dressing I lurve balsamic vinegar Mmmm! Or have you tried chicken with Jack Daniels dressing, now that is yummy, had it whilst in Florida about 6 years ago it was lovely!

Mine is simple, and might suit you (depends on your taste, of course) as you mentioned that you don’t cook. Take the chicken, boiled or grilled, whatever is left over – rotiserrie is great, too). Chop it up as finely as you want, adding mayo to taste. I add finely chopped celery and onion, and let it cool first – but you don’t have to. I like it on a bun with mustard, and add a slice of tomato and lettuce. I also make my tuna salad the same way.

:-)

It would seen to me that chickens aren’t too particular about how their salads are made!~

^^ I was just about to go there: “Ask the chicken if it wants it chopped or tossed?”