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.