Leftover Chicken Salad
This easy chicken salad is the perfect way to use up leftover chicken! Packed with pecans, dried cranberries, crispy bacon and a creamy dressing, salads don't come more delicious than this. Serves 4 large portions, can stretch to 6 modest portions depending on the context it's used (i.e as a sandwich you'll get more servings)
Servings: 5
Cost: £3 / $3.50
Equipment
- Large Bowl
- Medium Bowl
- Spatula
Ingredients
Chicken Salad
- 10.5oz / 300g Cooked Shredded/Cubed Chicken (2 tightly packed cups)
- 4 rashers of Bacon (cooked, cooled & chopped)
- 1/4 cup finely diced Celery, (approx 1 stalk)
- 1/4 cup finely diced Red Onion (approx 1/2 small red onion)
- 1/4 cup / 40g roughly chopped Dried Cranberries
- 1/4 cup / 35g roughly chopped Pecans
Dressing
- 1/2 cup / 120g Full Fat Mayo
- 1/2 cup / 120g Greek Yogurt
- 1 tsp Dijon Mustard
- 1/2 Lemon (juice only)
- Salt & Black Pepper, to taste
Instructions
- In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the dressing. Test for seasoning and adjust accordingly.
- In a larger bowl, add the salad ingredients. Pour in the dressing and stir to combine. It'll be fairly sauce, which is what you want. It getS soaked up as it rests.
- Pop in the fridge overnight to develop the flavours, or eat right away in a sandwich/wrap, as part of a leafy salad or just by itself!
Video
Notes
a) Chicken - Leftover rotisserie chicken will work best for this recipe. I recommend using mainly breast if you can and just shred it into thin chunks (as opposed to shredding it into absolute oblivion).
b) How to make shredded chicken - You want two large chicken breasts (approx 14oz/400g), season and fry both sides to get a nice colour, then fill up with water or chicken stock, pop a lid on and allow to simmer until cooked throughout. Depending on the size of breasts this could take between 8-12mins. Pop in a bowl and shred with two forks.
c) Storage - The length of time you can safely store for will of course depend on how long the chicken has been 'leftover' for. Just tightly cover and pop in the fridge to store. Not suitable for freezing.
d) Calories - Based on sharing between 5, no bread or extra salad etc.
Nutrition
Calories: 583kcal | Carbohydrates: 8.35g | Protein: 16.65g | Fat: 53.92g | Saturated Fat: 10.294g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 16.323g | Monounsaturated Fat: 16.407g | Trans Fat: 0.041g | Cholesterol: 62mg | Sodium: 306mg | Potassium: 290mg | Fiber: 1.1g | Sugar: 6.08g | Vitamin A: 235IU | Vitamin C: 2.7mg | Calcium: 51mg | Iron: 1.27mg