Chicken Salad: Beginner Cook Edition

As requested, here is my take on a simple and nutritious dish.

Chicken salad can take many forms and the only three ingredients that come standard in any chicken salad from my kitchen are shredded chicken, celery and mayo (or substitute such as non-fat plain greek yogurt, nayonaise* or some combination thereof). From there I like to fill in the blanks with either a) whatever I have on hand or b) a "flavor profile" that I am craving.
An easy way to make sure flavors go together is by choosing a food ethnicity and using ingredients common in that type of food. Hundreds of years of cooks from all over the world have assembled these nice "cultural flavor profiles", so why not use them? Especially for beginner cooks, reference your favorite food region and mimic those flavors in your chicken salad.

For example, if you like mexican food, add:
chopped tomatoes
green onion
chopped cilantro
tinian hot pepper
corn
raw chopped chayote
black beans
avocado
ground cumin
squeeze of lime
You could grill the chicken

Moroccan/North African:
chopped fresh mint
chopped parsley
squeeze of lemon
good black olives, pitted and chopped
a pinch of cinnamon
chili powder
chickpeas
yogurt
shredded carrot
chopped almonds

Indian:
cook chicken with crushed green cardamom pods (remove pods after cooking)
tumeric
cumin
some kind of hot pepper
saffron
a pinch of cinnamon
chili powder
yogurt
or, if your feeling daring, garam masala

Thai:
very finely sliced or grated lemongrass
green onion
peanuts
hot pepper
grated ginger
cook the chicken in coconut milk
squeeze of lime
cucumber

If you wanted to get crazy, you could make (or buy) Tom Kha Gai soup and use the chicken and some of the broth to add to your own shredded chicken, celery and chopped cucumber. I haven't tried this, but it would be a good way to add difficult thai flavors like lime leaves and galangal.

Anway, I could go on and on about chicken salad options, but here is the one that I usually end up making because it is tasty and my husband doesn't like "ethnic" food, whatever that means. I adapted this recipe from Gwyneth Paltrow's website, Goop.com, using flexible, Saipan-friendly ingredients.

goop.com

The Saipan, it's not Kelaguen, Chicken Salad

**2 1/2 cups cooked shredded chicken, pan-cooked, roasted or grilled (this is a good recipe for any leftover chicken you have)
3-4 stalks celery, chopped
1/3 cup chopped walnuts or any kind of nuts you have on-hand
4-5 green onions, chopped or 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup chicory or kang kung or broccoli rabe, chopped
1/4 cup halved grapes, any kind dried fruit or fresh apple or pear, chopped
1/2 cup mayo, nayonaise, greek non-fat yogurt (or some combination of these)

Stir everything together and season with salt and pepper to taste. Feel free to adjust the amounts according to your taste.

Let me know how your version turns out!


*Nayonaise is a low-fat, vegan, soy-based alternative to mayo that tastes more like Miracle Whip. Surprisingly, this can be found at Joeten Susupe in the mayo/dressing aisle. I usually mix nayonaise with either some real mayo or non-fat greek yogurt because I don't like the taste of Miracle Whip, but want to cut down on the fat of mayo. When I am in the U.S. and can get it, I go for Vegenaise because it has better nutrition than mayo and tastes amazing (though it is not low-fat).

** There are many ways to cook a chicken! If you have leftover roast chicken, grilled chicken (or Thanksgiving Turkey!), pick the meat off the bones and throw it in the salad. If you want to use chicken breasts, I recommend buying the individually wrapped ones in bulk from the freezer section of Joeten Superstore. Here is a good guide to different cooking methods. Don't worry too much about getting a meat thermometer just for chicken breasts. As long as there is no pink, it's done!