This chicken salad recipe is the perfect one to use if you have leftover chicken from a previous meal. This tasty chicken salad is filled with chopped nuts, grapes, celery, and so much flavor!
Why This Recipe Works
- This small batch chicken salad recipe is so much tastier than chicken salad from a restaurant.
- It's perfect to use leftover chicken in.
- This chicken salad is fresh-tasting, with pecans and celery for crunch, a little mayonnaise for creaminess, and stone ground mustard for a little kick.
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Ingredient Notes
- Cooked chicken: You might like to use our Poached Chicken recipe or use the meat from a store-bought rotisserie chicken.
- Hard boiled eggs: Eggs are absolutely optional but I happen to love adding a few chopped hard boiled eggs to my chicken salad.
- Celery: This gives the salad a nice crunch.
- Grapes: Adds a wonderful sweet flavor.
- Dill pickles and capers: These ingredients add a delicious tangy flavor.
- Pecans: You can use walnuts instead.
- Mayonnaise: I love using Duke's or Hellman's brand mayonnaise for best flavor.
- Stone ground mustard: Feel free to add more to taste if you like a stronger mustard flavor.
- Salt and black pepper: Add more or less according to your preference.
How To Make This Recipe
- Add all of the ingredients to a medium-sized bowl and stir well.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.
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You can serve this salad with crackers, tortilla chips, on bread, over lettuce or enjoy it on it's own.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you want to cook chicken for chicken salad, poaching chicken is a great method:
* Place the chicken in a single layer on the bottom of a pot. Sprinkle the salt over the top.
* Cover the chicken with water. Pour in enough cool water to cover the chicken by an inch or two. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low and cover.
* Continue to cook for 8 minutes, until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F when measured with a meat thermometer. This typically takes about 10 minutes.
* Remove the chicken from the pot and place it on a cutting board to cool.
Serve chicken salad as a sandwich, over salad greens, or with crackers.
Chicken salad can be served immediately or stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for 2 to 3 days.
Ways To Use Leftover Ingredients
If you have any ingredients left over from this chicken salad recipe, you might like to consider using them in any of these single serving and small batch recipes:
- Cooked chicken: Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Caprese Salad, Enchiladas Verdes
- Hard boiled eggs: Cobb Salad, Potato Salad, Tuna Salad
- Celery: Baked Stuffed Fish, Tomato Sauce, Shrimp Creole
- Pickles: Juicy Lucy
- Pecans: Butter Pecan Granola, Pecan Pie, DoubleTree Cookies
- Capers: Chicken Piccata
- Stone-ground mustard: Mashed Potatoes, Crawfish Beignets
Expert Tips
- Feel free to add apples, raisins, or craisins to add a sweet flavor.
- This recipe calls for using pecans but you can use another type of nut instead. You might consider using walnuts or cashews.
- Add greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise to reduce the calories.
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Ingredients
- 3 cups diced cooked chicken (2 chicken thighs or breasts - use leftover chicken or see notes to poach)
- 3 hard boiled eggs chopped
- 2 celery stalks chopped
- ½ cup chopped red grapes
- ¼ cup chopped dill pickles
- ¼ cup chopped pecans
- 2 tablespoons capers
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients to a medium-sized bowl and stir well.
- Season, to taste with salt and pepper
- Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled.
Notes
- Feel free to add apples, raisins, or craisins to add a sweet flavor.
- This recipe calls for using pecans but you can use another type of nut instead. You might consider using walnuts or cashews.
- Add greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise to reduce the calories.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
I just got the cookbook ” THE uLTIMATE COOKING FOR ONE COOKBOOK ” Can’t wait to try the great recipes ❣😀
Thank you so much for your support, Vickie. Please let me know if you find any favorites.
Chicken salad is my go-to summer cold salad. I like this easy for one version because then I’m not eating it for days straight!
I must admit, I think I had a bad experience with chicken salad when I was young.. I should probably give it another chance to be fair!