The BEST Chicken Salad

Today we’re making the ultimate chicken salad. It’s the best thing to have when you don’t want the oven on all day and you want something delicious that you can just pull out of the fridge and make everybody happy. There are a couple of little ingredients in here that make all the difference.

Ingredients & Preparation

I’m adding a very generous half cup of slivered almonds onto a baking sheet and we’re going to toast them at 350 °F for about 10 minutes. Make sure you stir them around halfway through so nothing gets burnt.

For this recipe you could use maybe four chicken breasts and end up with a pound and a half to two pounds of nice diced chicken. I feel like this is perfect for the summer when you don’t want the oven on all day, so I just picked up a rotisserie chicken from the market and we’re going to break it down. It’ll yield about a pound and a half of pure delicious meat, and I love dark meat, so this way you get a little bit of everything mixed in there.

My chicken’s been broken down totally, so now all I have is that delicious meat—no skin, no bones, no anything. Give it a rough chop. This is kind of up to you, but I like to have larger pieces of chicken in my salad.

Building the Dressing

Now that my chicken’s been all chopped up, I’m going to set it aside for just a moment and work on this bowl. I want this to be all in one bowl— as few dishes as possible—so I have one cup (240 milliliters) of mayonnaise. I don’t want my salad to be swimming in mayo; I actually don’t love the stuff that much.

I’m adding the juice of half of a lemon—probably about two tablespoons—then we’re going to mix this up. I’m adding in a stingy teaspoon of salt; we can add more later, but I think this will be good enough. I want to add the salt right now so it fully dissolves in the mayonnaise and nothing gets little salty pockets, because that’d be so annoying. You can add black pepper to taste; I want about half a teaspoon in here.

My last and secret ingredient is a tablespoon of really nice balsamic vinegar. This is going to hold everything together flavor-wise and add so much. Don’t be frightened of it—it is amazing. I also like that it takes away that super-white color of the mayonnaise and brings it a little closer to something natural.

Combining the Components

Now we’re going to dump our chicken in and fold the chicken. Just kidding—there’s a lot more to do, but I wanted to get the chicken nice and coated because the other ingredients are a little bit delicate and we don’t want to mush them up; we want them to be intact at the end of this. This will get set aside, and as we add the ingredients in we’ll pop them into this bowl and fold at the very end.

Fresh Add-ins

We’re going to chop one cup of celery—nice and thin pieces. You don’t want giant celery chunks, just little pieces of delicious crunch. Most of my slices are nice and thin; this is a perfect size. One cup of celery in you go.

Next are the grapes. I’m using muscat grapes; they’re super sweet. You could also use red grapes for a nice bit of contrast. This is the easiest way to cut grapes in half. I’m using measurements, but you can just use general proportions and eyeball it. One cup of halved grapes in you go.

I need to peel that apple. Peeling a small apple; I’ll be dicing it and using half a cup. A generous half cup in you go.

I have two green onions that I’ve washed and peeled the excess away from. Just trim the top and the bottom— not in that order— and give them a nice thin slice. This will add a little bit of bite and just be delicious. This goes into the salad as well.

Herbs & Final Touches

I took the leaves off of a few sprigs of thyme; I’ll end up with about a tablespoon. Now I’m working on the tarragon—fresh tarragon and chicken is a match made in heaven, especially with something sweet like grapes in there. I want about two tablespoons of this, but you can go crazy and double that as much as you’d like. Save a little bit for the top to use as garnish. Into the bowl.

The last thing we’re going to add is the toasted almond sliver batch that we did earlier. I totally toasted a handful or two extra; I’m going to put that aside and use it as garnish. Into the bowl.

Finishing & Serving

Now for a gentle fold. This smells so good. You could totally add other sweet elements in here too, or if you don’t like grapes you could sub it out for dried cranberries, dried apricots cut into slivers, peaches—whatever you like. I think this is a really nice salad for the summer.

I put my salad in a pretty bowl and then added some grapes, a little bit of extra tarragon, and some of the reserved toasted almonds just to make it look pretty and nice.

That balsamic vinegar and the tarragon just add a ton of extra flavor, and I guarantee you’re gonna love it.