Chicken Salad

Chicken salad is very versatile and yummy dish. You can use it on top of a bed of romaine and/or spinach or you could make about four sandwiches. Here’s my recipe for chicken salad but play with it and make it your own. 

1 portion shredded chicken

¼ cup light Ranch dressing

1 stalk of celery

2-3 scallions or green onion

½ bell pepper

10-15 grapes (approximate, please don’t count out the grapes a handful will do)

1/8 c Raisins

1/8 c Craisins

1 small apple diced (whatever in season)

Add one portion of shredded chicken to a bowl. Add ¼ cup of light ranch dressing, add veggies celery, bell pepper & green onion.  Add fruit, grapes, raisins, craisins and diced apple.  Mix to incorporate all chill for about 20 minutes then serve.

Note: You should use whatever fruits & veggies you have on hand.  There are no hard and fast rules here.  If I don’t have one of the items, I simply substitute something else.  I also add capers to this recipe. I haven’t included capers in the ingredients list because it isn’t something everyone has on hand.  Also capers can be quite pricey.  But keep them in mind and if you come across a good deal on them or happen to have some, just add a handful to the mix.  It’s really wonderful.

Keeping cut apples from going brown:

No one likes cut apples that go brown. To keep apples from going brown, once the apples are diced add them to a bowl, take a bit of lemon juice, just a capful, drizzle it over the apples.  Toss the mixture just a bit.  Add to your salad. No more brown apples.

Another trick with raisins:

Raisins can be a little chewy and hard, a good way to plump them up a bit is to add them to a small pot.  Add a bit of water and a capful of lemon juice.  Put the pot on the stove on a very low heat. Give it about 5 minutes then remove the heat and add cold tap water. This restores the raisins a bit and makes them nice and juicy.  Once cool add to your salad.