Fancy Chicken Salad Recipe - How To Make Chicken Salad

This might just become your next go-to chicken salad and wait until you see how many different ways you can serve it. Hey everybody, it's Natasha of natashaskitchen.com. In our house, we call this fancy chicken salad because of that yummy creamy dressing, also the pecans and the grapes. This salad is so versatile, so good, perfect for meal planning. And seriously, you guys are gonna love this dressing and I'm hungry. I want lunch, so let's get started. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to our channel to get all of our recipes and tips. We'll start by toasting one cup of pecans. I'm just gonna lightly toast these on a dry skillet over medium-low heat until they're golden and fragrant. Make sure you're tossing the nuts frequently when you're toasting so they don't burn. As soon as they're golden, transfer them to a cutting board and coarsely chop them up. Set those aside to cool and we're gonna work on dicing the chicken. I have a whole roasted chicken that I roasted myself. I have a great recipe for this and I will leave a link to it in the notes. You can also use a store-bought rotisserie chicken or just cook some chicken breasts. You'll need two large chicken breasts. Diced up, it should be about four cups. Add that to a large mixing bowl. Now we're gonna chop up about one cup or two to three sticks of fresh celery. Trim the ends off of the celery, then cut them in half lengthwise and finely chop them up. Add those to your mixing bowl with the chicken and now we're gonna cut up two cups of red seedless grapes. You can use any kind of seedless grapes really but I do love the color that the red grapes add to the salad. If you have any easy tricks for cutting grapes in half, let me know in the notes. The best way I found is just to use a serrated knife and they slice easily. Next we'll need a red onion. You'll want to peel off and discard the dry outer layer, then finely dice up half of the onion. You should get about half a cup of finely chopped onion or you can add it to taste. Add the onion along with your grapes to the mixing bowl. Also add your toasted and cooled pecans. Now we're gonna make our favorite dressing for chicken salad. In a small mixing bowl we're gonna combine half a cup of real mayonnaise and it's important to use real mayo for the best flavor in the dressing. Also add half a cup of sour cream and if you're looking for a lighter dressing you can substitute the sour cream with a plain fat-free greek yogurt. Next add two tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice and make sure you use fresh and not from concentrate because it will make all the difference in your dressing. And this is our favorite and longest lasting lemon squeezer. I will link to it in the notes. Next finely chop and add two tablespoons of fresh dill. Dill is my favorite herb for chicken salad but if you can't find it you can also use two tablespoons of finely chopped parsley. Last but not least we're adding half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of ground black pepper or you can add the seasoning to taste. Just stir to combine and your dressing is done. All right, our salad is made. Our dressing is ready. All that's left to do is combine and serve and I'm excited because we're that much closer to lunch. All right, you can just add the dressing to taste. I like to add all of it because it's really good and you won't regret it. But you want to make sure that the salad is creamy. There we go. Stir to combine. Oh yeah, this is one creamy salad but also the dressing preserves all the ingredients so it'll keep well in the refrigerator for a few days which I love because it's great for meal prep. Just transfer it to a Tupperware, cover it up and pop it in the fridge. Look at that. You want to stir until everything's evenly coated. Okay, that looks amazing and I'm going to transfer that to a serving bowl. So it's prettier because that's important. We eat with our eyes. Look at how saucy and creamy this salad is. It's also really easy. Both the salad and the dressing and everything about it is so good. A little more. Don't want to leave anything behind and you can see the little bits of dill in there but I do like to add a little bit of fresh dill to garnish if I'm serving this as a salad. Dill is like my grown-up glitter. Okay, beautiful. Now, the moment I've been waiting for. I'm going to show you all the different ways that you can serve this. It is so versatile and it makes lunch exciting. First, you can put this on lettuce cups. I've got a few fresh lettuce cups here. Lettuce cups are a great gluten-free option if you want to avoid the bread and skip the carbs. Super healthy and lighter lunch. Or you can serve it like a salad and I love to put some fresh arugula on the bottom, just like that. Fill up a plate with salad greens, arugula, whatever kind of greens you love and then just add the chicken salad over the top and be generous. And I also love that the creamy dressing in the chicken salad becomes a dressing for the arugula too and you don't need to add anything else. It's so good. Try it, such a treat. And then, last but certainly not least, you can serve this as a sandwich and for a special lunch, you can make a croissant sandwich. And I'm going to show you my secret to reheating croissants. So it's basically the best reheated croissant of your life. Check this out. Simply put a whole croissant into the air fryer at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. No need to preheat it and let that air fry for just three minutes. All right, hot crispy croissant. These seriously taste like they just came out of a bakery but they didn't. Seriously, you guys have to try that. That's the best way, the best way to reheat a croissant is in the air fryer. Like, listen to this crunch. Just listen. Okay, I get excited about these things. Okay, just slice this in half. I like to make a little pocket. I don't cut it all the way through so then my filling doesn't fall out the back. Then just open it up like a sandwich and it's warm and soft inside, crispy on the outside and then just stuff it with this super yummy chicken salad. Here we go. That's about all I can fit in there. That is a serious sandwich. Okay, and this is literally just as good, probably better than what you can get in a bakery or any deli really. This is delicious. Okay, here we go. The taste test. This is one seriously satisfying sandwich and I love all the flavors and textures in the chicken salad. I mean, you've got that tender chicken breast and then I love the juicy grapes in here. It adds that pop of sweetness to the salad. It's so good and if you don't want to use grapes, you can use other fruits. Apples are another favorite of mine. Easy to change this up, seriously. And then also, I love the little crunch from the, what is it called? Oh my gosh, celery. How do you forget what celery is? I just did. I love that the celery is crunchy. If you're thinking about skipping it, don't. It adds amazing texture and flavor to this. Even if you don't like celery, please, please, please try it at least once and you'll change your mind. And then also the crunchy toasted pecans in here are such a treat. This seriously has great flavor, great texture. It is a winning combination. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. And the salad is, the chicken salad is good enough to serve as a salad on its own. Even if you decided to go without the croissant, we do it all the time for lunch. I'm gonna go finish this chicken sandwich because I'm hungry. I hope you guys make this and love it and we'll see you in our next video.