Chicken salad is an easy dish to make, especially if the chicken is already cooked for you! In this recipe, I take a bit of help from the supermarket in the form of a ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken. The chicken is already seasoned, the meat is very tender, and best of all, it saves me the work of cooking the chicken. While I generally make this for lunch and serve it either on bread or a croissant (usually with some baby spinach, tomato slices, cucumber slices, and/or avocado slices), this is also great as an appetizer/snack if served with crackers or veggie crudites.
You will need: (makes 6ish servings)
- 1 standard-sized rotisserie chicken (not the “colossal” ones)
- 3/4 c plain yogurt
- 1-2 T mayonnaise
- 1/4 t salt, pepper to taste
- 1 carrot, peeled and diced very small
- 2 celery ribs, trimmed and diced very small
- 1/2 c sliced almonds
- 1/2 c dried cranberries (low sugar if available)
Directions:
- Peel the skin off of the chicken and discard. Also discard the wing tip sections. Pull off all the meat that you can, shredding it finely with your fingers into a large bowl. (This is done easiest when the chicken is still warm.)
- Add the yogurt, mayonnaise, and chicken to a food processor and pulse a few times until you get the desired consistency. I like the chicken to be chopped rather small, so I stop just short of it turning into chicken “paste” :)
- You can also just use a knife to chop the chicken into smaller pieces, cutting the shreds crosswise, if you don’t have a food processor. Also you can start with less mayo/yogurt if you like a drier texture, and always add more later.
- Pour the mixture back into the bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve on a croissant or with crackers and veggies.
You can mix pretty much anything you want into this salad. Sometimes I add a bit of dried dill and parsley. Other times I will add a chopped apple and pecans instead of cranberries and almonds.
* Curried chicken salad: Prepare chicken/yogurt as directed. Season with salt, pepper, 1 T curry powder, 1 t cumin powder, and 1/2 t garlic powder (or to taste). Stir in a small diced red bell pepper, 2 chopped green onions, 1/2 c quartered dried apricots, 1/2 c chopped cashews, and 1/4 c raisins or sultanas.
Wonderfully Made 