Dinner recipes | Easy Chicken Salad Recipes

Easy Chicken Salad Recipes

 

 

Chicken salad is an incredibly delicious and easy side dish or picnic item to make. There is little to these recipes and often times you can make it with leftovers to give them a second day facelift that everyone is sure to love. The first ingredient is chicken. As this is the star ingredient, it is the most important component of your chicken salad. It is amazing how easy chicken salad recipes can be.

Chicken

Generally, chicken in chicken salad is either, boiled, baked, roasted, or fried with the skin peeled off. As the dressing will make the skin soggy, it is best to remove any skin that may still be on your meat. Another important thing to remember about your chicken is that chicken salad is supposed to be easy to eat, so your meat cannot be too chunky. The most common way that the meat is served is either shredded or chopped into small cubes depending on what shape you prefer.

The Dressing

The next component is the dressing. This can be several different things. The most common is mayonnaise. This is the traditional dressing and as such, many recipes will call for mayonnaise. Other options for those that do not like mayonnaise is Miracle Whip, mustard, or some sort of vinaigrette. If you are going for a traditional chicken salad, however you should stick to either mayonnaise or Miracle Whip.

Chicken Salad

Other Add-ons

After you have chosen your dressing, you will need to contemplate any other items you want to add to your chicken salad. Some recipes call for sweet pickle relish, celery slices, and hard-boiled eggs while others do not. There are even some recipes if you are feeling a bit adventurous that call for halved grapes and walnuts. For a simple chicken salad, however it is generally best to stick with relish and eggs or celery slices.

Spices

The next thing to consider is what type of spices you want to add. This can either be done as the chicken is cooking to add flavor to the meat or after you have started bringing you recipe together. Traditional recipes call for a spice blend of herbs like dried parsley, black pepper, dried onions, and garlic. If you do not like any of these herbs however, it is completely possible to exclude all of them without ruining the salad.

The Salad

After you have chosen all of your ingredients, it will be time to bring them together. It is generally best to mix everything together at once and leave it to sit in the fridge for a couple of hours for the flavors to meld. There is no specific way to combine ingredients since they are all going to end up sitting together in a bowl until they are served. After you have mixed your chicken salad, you can consider several options for serving. You can serve it with crackers, on lettuce leaves, on bread or toast, or by itself.

Traditional Chicken Salad recipe

A simple chicken salad recipe is as follows:

Take six boneless chicken breast halves, already cooked in the method of your choice, and cube them. Combine with

one cup finely chopped celery,

1 teaspoon salt free herb blend, and

1 cup mayonnaise.

This is the simplest recipe.

If you feel like dressing it up try adding

2 tablespoons pickle radish and

two boiled eggs finely chopped.

With a simple base, you can try adding anything that you can think of. Depending on the occasion, you can add different spices, different nuts, and a little fruit if you are feeling daring or even try mixing up a special dressing. Chicken salad does not have to be complicated and can be easily tailored to fit any cook’s style. 

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