Sparks from the Kitchen

Every once in a while I get the urge to have a chicken salad sandwich. I’ve tried a few recipes over the years and wasn’t ever happy with any of them for one reason or another-too much mayo, didn’t like the curry etc… and I didn’t ever take the time to mess around with the recipes to get it just right. So I’d go to my local deli and get a chicken salad sandwich which is neither waist-line or budget friendly.

Well my friends-my search is over. Last night I made (in my opinion anyway) the perfect chicken salad. Not too much sauce, tang from the gherkins (or cornishons if you’re feeling saucy), crunch from the celery, onion and gherkins, and a ton of flavors from the Dijon, lemon juice and parsley.  The best part is I don’t feel like I’m the size of a hippo after I’ve eaten it-and it’s just darn tasty to boot. 

I ate my chicken salad sandwich on one of the Pepperidge Farm sandwich flats with sliced tomato, a few wedges of avocado and some romaine lettuce and it made a pretty tall sandwich. 

I think this would also be great served on pieces of cucumber, rolled up in lettuce leaves or even crackers for an appetizer.  This would also be amazing eaten from an avocado cup.  I think I’ll try that next time.

Winner Winner Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (about .75lb) cooked and cut into small pieces (mine were about the size of my pinky nail)
• 1.tsp Dijon Mustard
• 1 tsp lemon juice-freshly squeezed
• 2 tsp fresh parsley, minced
• 1/3 cup light Hellman’s mayonnaise
• 2.5 tbsp fat free sour cream
• 1/2 cup celery, diced small
• 2 tbsp red onion, diced small
• 1/3 cup gherkins, diced small
• kosher salt and white pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Add everything into a bowl and stir to combine.

Notes:

• For the celery, onion and gherkins I used my little Kitchen Aid chopper to have all uniform sized pieces.
• I cut the chicken breast into about 7 equally sized strips and then cooked them on my panini press. I then cut them up into small nugget sized pieces and put them on a plate in the fridge to cool down so that I could make the salad.  They only took only about 25 minutes to cool.