This Creamy, Tasty, Homemade Chicken Salad recipe is the perfect salad for a picnic at the park for 2, school lunch for kids, or a light dinner on a hot summer evening.
Chicken salad is probably one of my favorite salad recipes because you can serve it in so many ways, and everyone likes it, which is a plus. Give this recipe a shot! If you’re a fan of chicken, salad, and toasted bread, this recipe is for you!!!
Hey, PBJ’s. Today, I’m going to share my creamy, amazingly delicious, homemade chicken salad recipe with you guys. This chicken salad is the BOMB, y’all! I’m so excited to share this recipe with you all!
Salad is my specialty, and it’s so gratifying when you all tell me how much you enjoy my salad recipes; chicken salad happens to be one of my favorites!
Why I love this recipe:
- IT’S QUICK & SIMPLE: People like to prepare chicken salad during warm months when they want to whip up something to eat real quick without having to spend hours laboring over the stove.
When it’s hot outside… the LAST place you want to be is in a hot kitchen preparing a meal for the family. This is why salads are so popular during the summertime and this salad is perfect because it’s quick and easy to make. - IT’S LIGHTWEIGHT: Another thing I love about this recipe is how light it is on the stomach. It won’t leave you feeling stuffed unless you overeat because of how good it is lol.
- SO MANY WAYS TO SERVE IT: You can eat chicken salad as a sandwich, which is how I like to eat mashed between toasted bread or as a spread over some saltine crackers like my grandma, Aunt Pam, and I used to.
- YOU CAN HAVE IT AS A MEAL OR SNACK: You can serve chicken salad as a meal or snack. It’s the perfect lunch for kids or picnic meal, and it can be eaten as a late-night snack because, as I said, it’s so lightweight.
Aunt Pam’s Monday Lunch
Chicken salad is typically made with leftover chicken meat from a whole chicken recently baked for dinner, well, that’s the only time my family made it. Lol! During the winter months, instead of using the leftover chicken meat to make chicken salad, we’d use it to make chicken stew.
I always thought of chicken salad as a way to not waste leftover chicken meat! My aunt Pam, who is my mother’s older sister and my favorite aunt, worked an excellent job, so every other Monday, she was off, including weekends.
I stayed with her and Grandma Viola Taylor, her mother, during my teen years in South Philly. One thing we loved to do, was eat so we never wasted food!!! McCloud, my grandma Viola’s husband, would frequently bake a whole chicken for Sunday dinner.
And so I can vividly remember Pam using the remaining chicken meat left on the bones of the chicken we devoured to make chicken salad. She’d come downstairs from her room still dressed in her night clothes and walk straight to the frig and pull out the leftover chicken.
Grab a bowl, some mayo, onions, and celery. She’d chop the chicken, onions, and celery into small pieces, then stir in some mayo. Her chicken salad was FIYA and she’d always invite me to eat some with her.
She would eat it as a sandwich on some toasted bread with a pickle and chips on the side or as a dip and spread it over some crackers.
Not your typical salad!!
Now people don’t usually make chicken salad for summer cookouts like with other salads like potato salad, tuna macaroni salad, and pasta salad for such occasions.
Chicken salad is typically made with leftover chicken meat from a whole chicken recently baked for dinner, which is why it reminds me so much of tuna! Btw, you check out my recipes for all those salads below.
Ingredients you’ll need for Chicken Salad:
- MEAT: Chicken
- ADD-INs: Eggs
- VEGETABLE ADD-INS: Red onions, Celery, and Dill Pickles
- SEASONINGS: Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Black Pepper, and Parsley Flakes
- CONDIMENTS: Mayo and Sweet Relish
About boneless Chicken breast and dark meat
BONELESS CHICKEN BREAST: People always asked if they can use boneless breast. YES, OF COURSE! I just prefer using rotisserie chicken from the grocery store but chicken breast will suffice!
To make a chicken salad using chicken breast, place the chicken breast in a skillet with a little oil, and let the chicken cook over medium heat until tender, then shred or chop the breast up into 2-1/2 cups worth of meat.
DARK MEAT: Dark meat is the one thing I’d say makes chicken salad using a whole chicken or already cooked rotisserie chicken from the store better than boneless chicken breast. The dark chicken not only has more flavor but it’s a more tender juicier part of the meat which makes for a better overall salad.
That is sort of subjective though because some folks do like this salad made with just white meat. If you’re one of those people, then go with chicken breast. How to prepare that for this recipe can be found in the ADD-INS & VARIATIONS SECTION BELOW!!!
Why I choose these vegetables
- RED ONIONS: I always use red onions for salad because it’s not very strong and overwhelming because of its neutral flavor and I’m superficial so I use it for decoration purposes to make the salad look pretty with its beautiful purple color.
- CELERY: It’s celery, it makes almost every salad taste better.
- DILL PICKLES: I love a chicken salad that has a good balanced flavor profile with a very little hint of sweetness from the sweet relish, savoriness from the chicken, a kick of heat from the black pepper, and a hint of tang from the sour dill pickles. The mild sweet and sour combo in this salad is to die for and does a lot for this dish.
About the seasonings
- SALT: This is for taste obviously and to enhance the overall salad. Go without it and your salad may be bland and might not HIT the same. More on salt below in the SALT TO TASTE section.
- GARLIC & ONION POWDER: Don’t everyone put garlic and onion powder on chicken? That does change because it’s for a salad.
The garlic and onion make this salad so much better than without. These are two very necessary seasonings and they’re the most used seasonings outside of salt and pepper for a reason. They make everything better, especially meats. - BLACK PEPPER: It gives the salad a hint of heat and pepper as I always say is underrated but gives everything you use it for and put it in and on something IT JUST NEEDS! Lol!
- PARSLEY FLAKES: I use parsley because I love putting herbs in my salad, I love the almost unrecognizable flavor it adds and the look of importance it gives the salad. Sprinkle some parsley in or on your salads and watch how much sexier it looks. Lmbo!
Salt to taste
You may notice in the ingredients section that I didn’t list the amount of salt to use. The reason is that sometimes rotisserie chicken from the supermarket is already seasoned.
If you’re using leftover chicken meat from a chicken you baked, you may not need any additional salt. I like to add more salt because once I add the mayo and other ingredients, I find that the salad needs more.
To ensure you don’t over-season the salad, taste it once you’re done preparing it, and add salt if needed. For my cooking novice out there, if after tasting the salad you feel it needs some salt, keep adding 1/4 tsp of salt until the salad is as seasoned as you like.
About the condiments
- MAYO: Use a good brand of Mayo, like Hellmann’s or Duke’s. Aside from the chicken, the mayo is the most important for lack of a better word and base ingredient so use a good brand of mayo not no cheap stuff!
- SWEET RELISH: Sweet relish adds a hint of sweetness to the salad that gives it personality. I don’t use much so don’t worry about a sweet salad it just adds more depth of flavor and gives the salad more umph!
How To Make Chicken Salad
- Ok so to begin this recipe, the first thing you’re going to do is focus on the chicken. There are a few things that I want to address regarding the preparation of the chicken meat.
As I stated earlier, whenever my family and I made chicken salad, we used the remaining chicken left over from a whole chicken we baked ( a few nights before for dinner). Now if you don’t have any chicken meat prepared, here are two options.
- Buy a small rotisserie chicken from your local supermarket.
- Cook 3 large boneless chicken breasts.
Whichever option you decide, make sure to shred or chop 2-1/2 cups worth of chicken meat. That’s how much is needed for this recipe.
- Place a small pot of water over high heat and add in the egg once it comes to a boil. Sit the egg aside in a small bowl of cool water to chill once done.
- So to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, chop the celery, onions, and pickles into small pieces while the egg is boiling.
- I chop my vegetables into fine pieces because I don’t like biting into big chunks of vegetables, but you can chop them into whatever size pieces you like.
- Remove the shell and chop the egg into small pieces.
- Now it’s time to combine everything, so add the chicken to a big mixing bowl, then stir in the seasonings.
- Fold in the vegetables and eggs.
- Then you’re going to add in the relish and mayo. Use big tablespoons of mayo, not leveled ones.
- Fold everything in well, then store the salad in the refrigerator to chill.
Classic Chicken Salad Video
Tips for best results
- I don’t use a lot of mayo because I don’t like my chicken salad wet, but I use enough so that the salad won’t dry out which happens once you store it in the fridge.
- I always let my salads sit in the fridge for a while before digging in! Allowing the salad to rest for a few hours maximizes the flavor. I also like my salad chilled but you can eat it as soon as you’re done combining everything if you like.
What to serve with chicken salad
- CHIPS: Nothing goes better with a chicken sandwich than a side of potato chips. I keep it simple with a salty finger-licking yellow bag of “CLASSIC” LAY’s chips. If I can’t find those, I’ll get the sour cream flavor.
OMG! Delicious! I’m from Philly so our top brand of chips is “HERR’S” and the original kind with just salt are called ‘Crisp n Tasty’.
Those are my favorites to eat with a HOAGIE. We pronounce it, “HO”-“GEE”, which is what yall would call a cold cut, lunch meat sandwich, or subway. - CRACKERS: Chicken salad spread over some saltine, ritz, or wheat thins cracker will have you in heaven. My 2nd favorite way to eat chicken salad other than as a sandwich on toasted bread.
- PICKLES: I don’t just like chopped pickles in my chicken salad but a nice sliced pickle on the side the bitter flavor goes great with chicken salad.
Other salad recipes you might like:
- World’s best Southern potato salad recipe – This is potato salad, folks! Lol! You must bring this to a family cookout, and it tastes great with darn near everything… chicken, fish, steak, pork, fried meat, grilled meat, baked meat, you name it.
- Deli-style macaroni salad recipe – This salad is one of my favorites and goes great with fried fish and french fries, trust me, and just try it.
- The best Tuna macaroni salad recipe – This is the perfect salad for a family cookout and tastes great with all BBQ and fried chicken.
- Delicious seafood pasta salad recipe – This is a modification of my aunt Angie’s amazingly delicious seafood salad. Perfect for seafood and pasta lovers and a good choice for family cookouts.
- Zesty Italian pasta salad recipe – This salad is so refreshing and such a fan favorite because everyone loves it and you can bring it to any event any time of the year.
- Delicious creamy spaghetti seafood salad recipe – This is also perfect for seafood and pasta lovers. The type of salad you can bring to any event such as birthday parties, wedding receptions, baby showers, cookouts, etc.
I love this chicken salad recipe and I know you will too. Enjoy!
PBJ-
Easy Classic Chicken Salad Recipe (With Video)
Creamy, tasty, chicken salad made with seasoned shredded rotisserie chicken meat, celery, onions, pickles, eggs, and more….. This salad is packed with flavor and is typically served as a sandwich over lightly toasted bread. It goes well with chips or crackers, and is Ideal for family picnics and lunch.
- Total Time: 30 Mins
- Yield: 4
Ingredients
2–1/2 Cups Shredded Chicken
3 Tbs Celery, finely chopped
3 Tbs Red Onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs Dill Pickles, finely chopped
1 Large Egg (optional)
5 Tbs Mayo
1 Tbs Sweet Relish
Salt To Taste
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1/2 Tsp Parsley Flakes
1/4 Tsp Black Pepper
Instructions
1. Chop 2-1/2 cups of chicken into small pieces then place in a big mixing bowl.
2. Place a small pot of water over high heat and once it comes to a boil add egg and boil for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, chop celery, onions, and pickles into small pieces.
4. Once egg is done, sit in cool water to chill then remove the shell.
5. Add the vegetables and eggs to the bowl of chicken.
6. Add in the seasonings and fold well.
7. Add in the mayo and relish and fold well again.
8. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and sit in the refrigerator.
- Prep Time: 15 Mins
- Cook Time: 15 Mins
- Category: Salads
- Cuisine: American
by
8 Responses
Thank you so much for your recipes and videos on you-tube. I get so mouthwatering hungry when I watch them and have learned so much from them. I love your comments and colorful descriptions. Please add more. I would like a recipe for some southern breads and great variety of vegetables like fried squash, okra and Brussels spouts. I don’t have a clue as to how to cook broccoli or cauliflower where it is just a good taste. Thanks again, Sherry
What will be the ingredient measurements for 100 servings? Please…! I need to make this for a party next week.
Want to thank you for sharing. I just made the Chicken salad, its Great. Thanks PBJ
Sounds delicious
Do you have one for Tuna, and also Sardine sandwiches, using King Oscar Sardines?
Would you please post your recipe for salmon croquette/patties?
Man where did you learn to cook?!! Wowzer it sure wasn’t in Philly. I can tell it came straight out of the south somewhere.. I’ve live in Alabama all of my life and you do my kind of cookin’. I’m disabled and can’t cook much anymore except a little in a crock-pot. If I had money I would do my best to hire you as my private cook. Alas, like most people these days, no money. I want to offer my sincerest thank you for your wonderful recipes. And I wish you the very best of luck in the future.
Thank you I love. Your foods recipe. DAM you a good Cook. Keep up the good work Bless you for taking the time to help us out. By Roberta