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Lumpy Chicken Salad

Lumpy Chicken Salad

2 to 2.5 cups cooled rotisserie chicken, pulled off the bone and chopped into 1/2" dice
3/4 cup light mayonnaise
3 to 4 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 to 3 Tbsp light Italian dressing
1/2 cup small diced celery
1/3 cup red grapes halved (quartered if they're very big)
1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup Honeycrisp apple, peeled and 1/2" diced
scant 1/4 cup green onion, greens sliced diagonally
Salt & pepper to taste
Optional: diced red pepper, dill pickle relish

Combine the ingredients, chill for 2-3 hours, serve. Delicious and easy!



My friend Erik reminded me today that it's too dang hot to cook in the kitchen right now, and he is absolutely right. When July takes over the Cruddy Little Kitchen, I take the toaster oven outside to the porch for anything that needs to be baked. I run an ugly orange extension cord out there and use electric tape to try to make sure nothing gets electrocuted if a thunderstorm blows the rain sideways toward the toaster oven. I basically give up casseroles for August. It's just too hot inside. 

So I have been making salads, which are pretty popular in my little family. When I made this batch of chicken salad -- see the pictures! None of them flash and you don't have to scroll through them to get the recipe! -- my son asked me to cancel the dinner plans so we could just eat chicken salad sandwiches for dinner. That was a Sunday! Chicken salad sandwiches for Sunday dinner! With homegrown tomatoes and a chunk of Costco's pesto focaccia, it wasn't even a hardship to put off cooking. 

The next day, my husband took a container of chicken salad and a Costco croissant for lunch, and he came home raving about how nice it was to dine on crunchy chicken salad and buttery croissant in the middle of the terrible packaging plant where he's working during the pandemic.

It was like a little break from everyday stress, he said. It was like vacation food. At *work*. 

You can buy this kind of chicken salad practically anywhere, but this is a lot cheaper, and it'll blow the minds of your friends and family if you make it yourself. 

Tell me how cool your kitchen is after you don't have to cook anything! Thanks for reading!

--Bay
(more pictures now, none of them offering clickbait)





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Comments

  1. erik98122August 1, 2020 at 1:29 PM

    Yum! This sounds like a perfect too damn hot recipe!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AmyAugust 2, 2020 at 5:16 PM

    A very wise chef taught me long ago how to elevate a simple salad by adding cut grapes to it. This chicken salad sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete

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