Avocado Chicken Salad
28 Feb 2012 1 Comment
in chicken, company's coming!, Cooking for 2, salad, sandwiches
This was one of those pins that I couldn’t wait to try!
And it didn’t disappoint. I’m really partial to my own chicken salad recipe as far as homemade goes, so I’m always reluctant to try a new one BUT because of the avocado, I gave this a try. Yum!
The original is here, and the only slight change I’ll make next time is using red onion instead of green onions. I think that will make this taste like the perfect mashup between Chipotle’s guacamole and chicken salad.
Here’s how I did it, along with approximate quantities:
~3 1/2 cups of chopped rotisserie chicken (of course, you can cook/shred chicken at home, but I keep rotisserie chicken in the freezer for occasions like this!)
1 1/2 regular-sized avocados
1/4 cup light Hellmann’s mayo (really go easy on this…I may have used a bit too much, and you can always add a little more if needed)
4 green onions, sliced – or, next time, I’ll use minced red onion. Again, start with a little, taste, add more if you want.
cilantro, to taste
juice of one-half a lime, or maybe a bit more
salt/pepper to taste – using rotisserie chicken meant I didn’t need to salt this, really, but it did need pepper
Mix everything in a bowl, simple as that. Serve with crackers or make sandwiches. I’m a chicken salad sandwich snob, and if I’m going to eat it as a sandwich, I want it on a croissant or pita or mini King’s Hawaiian bread or something, so a piece of whole-grain bread just won’t do. And since none of the breads listed above are remotely healthy, I opted for a few crackers with mine.
i can't wait until there is still sunlight coming through my windows at dinnertime, so my pictures with my crappy camera are less crappy.
Enjoy!
Oriental Chicken Salad
14 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in company's coming!, salad, side dishes
When I posted my version of Oriental Slaw, Sonya left her variations to the recipe in the comments section. I made her version a couple of weekends ago, and it was sooooo good that I don’t want it to just be lost in the comments and not have its own post!
Super simple, and great for company or showers, too.
1 (1 lb) bag of broccoli slaw (in the produce section, right by the coleslaw mixes)
Rotisserie chicken, with the white meat pulled off and shredded or chopped (or, you can grill chicken at home and use that, too)
6 green onions, sliced thinly
2 packages Oriental Ramen noodles
3 oz sliced almonds
3 oz sunflower seed kernels
¼ cup vinegar
½ cup oil
½ cup sugar
Mix slaw, chicken and onions in a large bowl.
Crush the Ramen noodles inside the packages. In a skillet, lightly brown the noodles, almonds and sunflower seed kernels over low-medium heat (and keep an eye on them; you don’t want this to burn!). Add to the slaw mixture.
To make the dressing, mix the vinegar, oil, sugar and the flavoring packets from the Ramen. This won’t totally combine, but that’s ok. You can mix this up ahead of time and refrigerate it so that it’s ready when you need it.
Pour the dressing over the slaw about 15-20 minutes before serving.
Chicken Salad
30 Jun 2009 5 Comments
in chicken, salad, sandwiches
This is my mom’s chicken salad recipe, and it’s the best!
7 cups cooked, chopped chicken breast (about 3 1/2 lbs)
1 cup finely chopped celery
3/4 cup finely chopped onion (I use a little less than this)
1/2 cup relish (again, I use a little less)
red grapes, halved
2 Tbl lemon juice
2 – 2 1/2 cups light Hellmann’s mayo
salt & pepper
3/4 cup chopped pecans
halved grapes, optional
Mix everything together except pecans…mix them in just before serving. This makes a TON of little sandwiches for a baby/bridal shower. I usually make about a 1/3 of a recipe when it’s just for us to have around the house.
Loaded Baked Potato Salad
19 May 2009 2 Comments
in salad, side dishes
My SIL Michon gave me this recipe – I think her sisters made it for our family last year – and it is SO good. It makes a TON. And as you can see from the ingredients, it’s really, really healthy (lying through my teeth). But, it seemed a perfect time to post this recipe, with the upcoming Memorial Day holiday and all.
5 lbs. small unpeeled red potatoes, cubed
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
8 hard-boiled eggs, diced
1 lb sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 medium Vidalia or sweet onion, finely chopped
3 dill pickles, chopped
1½ cups (12 oz) sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
2-3 tsp mustard
Place the potatoes in a greased 15x10x1” baking pan; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake, uncovered, at 425 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until tender. Cool in pan on a wire rack.
In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, eggs, bacon, cheese, onion and pickles. In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, and mustard; pour over the potato mixture and toss to coat. Serve immediately. Yield: 20 servings.
Oriental Slaw
07 May 2009 4 Comments
in salad, side dishes
AKA Better get some now before Matt eats all of it.
It’s a standing joke in our family that Matt has to be last in line when this is made, because he will eat a ridiculous portion of it. He makes it his main course instead of whatever is supposed to be.
This is great for summer cookout – it just tastes good with grilled foods alongside it!
1 lb. shredded cabbage
6 chopped green onions
2 packages chicken ramen noodles
3 oz. sliced almonds
3 oz. sunflower seeds (kernels)
Crush the noodles and brown them in a pan with the almonds. Mix all ingredients above together. Then, make the dressing:
¼ cup vinegar
½ cup oil
½ cup sugar
Chicken flavoring from noodles
Mix together and pour over salad 30 minutes before serving.
Leftover Chicken Ideas and Grilled Pineapple
02 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in chicken, fruit, grill, leftovers, salad
First up, we have the “what do I with leftover grilled chicken” dilemma solved. If you’re like me, and hate leftovers most of the time (there are a few things I like as reruns, but not much), this is for you. I purposely had Matt grill up a bunch of extra chicken breasts last time we had them, and I did two things with the leftovers.
1. Mexican Grilled Chicken Salad. Romaine lettuce, corn, black beans (love them!), grilled chicken, a little shredded cheddar, and whatever dressing you like. This would have been good with some of those crunchy tortilla strip thingies you can get in the crouton aisle. Yummy and very easy. It looked like this.
2. There’s no way my kids were going to eat that for dinner, so I got creative and took a package of reduced-fat crescent rolls out of the fridge, and laid out each triangle. I put a good-sized strip of chicken and a thin slice of muenster cheese on the large part of the triangle, and rolled them up like you would regularly. Then I just baked them as the package suggests. They were good and the kids ate them! In fact, I ate too many and didn’t want all of my salad 
For adults, I think these would be really good if you carmelized some onion and put that in there too. I took a picture of this, too.
Now, onto grilled pineapple. It’s so good; if you’ve never done it, here and here are two recipes to try. We did the second one last weekend, and I have to admit, I like the first recipe better (except that we do pineapple rings instead of quartering it like the picture, and I’ll use chopped walnuts since we don’t have macadamia nuts around the house).
I got all Pioneer Woman Cooks and took pictures of the process, since most of you probably haven’t done this before. Oh, except she takes awesome pictures, photo-documents the whole process (I kept forgetting to take pictures), and would probably laugh her behind off at this totally amateurish attempt.
If you don’t own one of these pineapple-cutter-things, and you eat any pineapple at all, you should get one. Use your 20% coupon at BB&B or LnT, and get it for $8. It works like a corkscrew, and cores and slices the pineapple. Oh, and you can get great pineapple at Sam’s Club (it’s Del Monte brand) for less than $3 a piece.
Here’s me starting the process…my floor is totally sanitary, so this is cool. I have to do this because the counter is too tall.
After a little effort, I realize that I am making the thing go crooked, so I stop and pull out the tool. This is what I’ve got. Three rings of pineapple in about 10 seconds.
But instead of being frustrated with it, I just get someone else’s help. It’s so much easier.
After about 30 seconds, Matt had this:
I am slightly annoyed that I am such a weakling. Anyway, you’re left with tons of pineapple juice (just drink it; or, plan ahead, which I did not do, and use it to make some delicious mixed drink, which you can pour into the hollowed-out shell after you figure out a way to cut the core out). You’ll end up with about 10 slices of pineapple.
Here’s where I forgot to take pictures: while I was making the butter/honey/hot sauce/salt “marinade” for the pineapples from recipe two above. If you use this recipe, I suggest that you use more honey and more hot sauce than the recipe calls for. Mix it all in a bowl, and then pour it over the pineapple slices in a large ziploc bag. Be gentle with it; I wasn’t and a bunch of the pineapple rings broke.
Then, I remembered to grab my camera so you can see what they look like on the grill. Fascinating. Thanks to Matt for being the model.
And here’s the finished product! We ate them for dessert. Would have been good with some vanilla ice cream, but I didn’t think of that either.
Well, that’s probably the first and last time I’ll do all of that picture stuff with recipes. Too much work and no smiley kiddo faces! Let me know in the comments if you try these…
