AWESOME CHICKEN SALAD WITH GRAPES AND PECANS

I did not care for chicken salad growing up.  I was a picky eater.  To be quite honest my pickiness was rather weird.  I was not the typical picky child.  I liked oysters and livermush.  Mac and cheese not so much.  I really did not care much for meat growing up.  And eggs....yuck.  For years eggs gave me stomach aches.  Well, eggs are not in this chicken salad recipe.  This is a fruity salad with a secret to making it awesome!  It took me a while to perfect the trick to this recipe.  You might even already know it yourself.  

I am not a huge mayonnaise fan either.  The fact you can overwhelm a recipe with mayo makes things a bit complex when you are talking about chicken salad.  After all, that is the glue that holds the chicken together.  

This recipe makes a light delicious fruity and nutty salad.  One you can eat on bread, by its self, on a salad or you can even use a piece of romaine to hold a scoop of this wonderful salad.  

I used canned chicken.  Here is the recipe.  I drained the chicken and rinsed it.

While the chicken was draining, I put together the sauce.

Mixed that together.

Put that aside while I chopped celery.

Onion

Grapes

Pecans

Put all of the above ingredients into the bowl with the sauce.

Mix it all together.

AWESOME CHICKEN SALAD WITH GRAPES AND PECANS

• 2 cups chicken, shredded
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cups light sour cream
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1/2 chopped red onion
• 1/2 cup halved red grapes
• 1/4 cup sliced celery
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• If you are using canned chicken drain, rinse and drain again.  Shredded chicken.
• In a bowl big enough to mix everything together, combine mayonnaise, light sour cream, and dijon mustard.  Set aside.
• Chop red onion.  Slice grapes in half.  Chop pecans and slice celery.
• Put chicken, onion, grapes, pecans, and celery into the bowl with the mayo mixture and combine well.

The trick to this recipe is the light sour cream.  You might know to use sour cream already but using light sour cream helps to make it, well, lighter.  Mayo in the recipe would be too overwhelming.  So, the usage of the light sour cream helps to lighten the heaviness of the mayo.  Regular sour cream is too heavy and it just does not do the same as the light version does.

Substitutions:  You can use walnuts or slivered almonds in place of the pecans.  I prefer pecans.

You can also, use spring onions instead of the red onion.  You want a bit of a bite with your onion so using yellow or white just does not give this chicken salad what it needs.

For the grapes, you can use cherries.  

You can use rotisserie chicken, grilled chicken or cooked chicken instead of the canned chicken.  I think store bought canned chicken is horrible I am so glad I have home canned chicken. You cannot compare the difference in home canned the stuff canned and purchased at a store.

I hope you like this recipe.  It is by far my favorite way of making chicken salad.

ENJOY!!  

Happy St Patrick's Day.