Chicken salad.
Since I throw this together by eye and by taste, I’m just listing ingredients, so it’s “Not Quite a Recipe” ‘K?
Chicken, cooked, deboned and chunked. You can use canned chicken if you want–I have at times–but it’ll lack flavor. I like some nice juicy dark meat in mine, but I’ve noticed most folks seem to prefer the less flavorful white meat for some reason. Whatever.
Onion, minced.
One or two garlic cloves, minced. More if you’re making more than a couple of cups of salad or just want more garlic. You can rehydrate dried garlic chips if you want, but they lack flavor, IMO.
Lemon pepper
More black pepper
Celery seeds
Celery stalk(s), de-stringed and diced
Mayo. No, the real stuff.
Either some sweet pickle relish, the finely diced kind, or some diced jalapeño or other fav capsaicin-laden pepper. (I can hardly wait for my habaneros to come in… and hopefully the “ghost pepper”–Bhut Jolokia–seeds I’ve planted will bear fruit as well ;-))
Balance the ingredients according to your taste and refrigerate. Serve on lettuce or in a sandwich (with lettuce and tomato).
Just good eats, folks.
Chicken salad – a favorite of mine, and I’m with you on the “real” mayo too. That other stuff is just salad dressing, and I can’t quite figure out the east-coast part of my family’s preference for it.
Well, there’s a tang to some “salad dressings” that goes well in some dishes. I do have a fruit salad that a couple of “salad dressings” work well with, but that’s really about the only recipe I make that I can recommend such a thing for. Otherwise, mayo it is.
I love dark meat in chicken salad. Not as dry as the white.
And I always had dressing in my salad until I made it for myself after I moved out. I had accidentally gotten mayo instead of the Whip. Loved it. We never used mayo at all when I was growing up – my dad liked Miracle Whip. I never liked it so I have gotten used to having pretty dry sandwiches – usually only a bit of mustard. My dad would call them “dry as popcorn farts.” 🙂
The only thing you have up there that I don’t put in is onion. I sometimes use onion powder, but not often. Of late I have been adding dried cranberries, walnuts, diced apples, water chestnuts, lots of crunchy things. 🙂
I like the onions as much for the crunch factor as the flavor, Nicole. I might try the water chestnuts. Have had chicken salad (someone else’s) with apple and grapes. Was OK but not to my taste. Besides, apples and pepper don’t really float my boat and I really, really NEED *heh* pepper in my chicken salad. It’s a “me” thing. Walnuts? I might could go there.
Sounds yum. And you know I totally appreciate the “Not Quite Recipes” since my recipe posts are always called “Not Really Recipes”
I’m going to try this.