Hey this is Erin Clarke from wellplated.com and today we are
making my Whole 30 Chicken Salad. whether or not you're following the
whole 30 diet, you need this healthy chicken salad recipe in your life! It is
full of protein, all kinds of different textures, and a delicious, creamy
tahini dressing. If you are looking for more easy, healthy recipes be sure to
like, subscribe, and follow. I share a new one every week. Let's get
started. Now what I love about any chicken salad recipe is that it is nice
and chunky and has all kinds of different delicious additions that
balance each other well flavor-wise, and that also have great flavor and texture.
And for me one of those key ingredients is celery.
I feel like celery is a little bit of an ugly stepsister. It's not necessarily the
first ingredient that you might reach for, but it is essential to chicken salad.
It's going to make this taste really cool and crisp. I think I've been eating
chicken salad my entire life. When my sisters and I were younger, my grandma
used to take us out for lunch at this (what I thought back then) was a fancy
restaurant—it was probably just a normal cafe—and anytime I could, I loved to
order the chicken salad sandwich. I thought that I was so grown-up, and as
I've gotten older, I still really like the flavor and the idea of
chicken salad, but I've sort of lost my taste for the really thick, goopy mayo
that you find in most restaurant chicken salad recipes. So what this recipe
does is take those same core ingredients that are in what is known as Waldorf
chicken salad, but it remakes them in a light, bright
and healthy way. Now in addition to the celery, this
recipe also calls for green onion. It kind of gives the chicken salad just a
little bit of edge and bite. One green onion is enough for me and my taste with
this batch, but if you really love green onions you can definitely feel free to
add more; this recipe is super flexible. You can stir it together, taste it, throw
in a little more this, a little more of that; whatever you like. All right we've got our
green onion. Now we are going to hit our chicken salad with a bright burst of
freshness in the form of one of my favorite herbs. This is fresh dill. So you
don't need to be super surgical about this or anything—just kind of roughly
chop the dill. The fragrance from this is just so lively and fresh. Any recipe
with dill automatically tastes alive. Set our dill aside. Okay now that we have
some of our ingredients prepped, I'm going to stir it all together and show
you what else goes in this chicken salad. So starting out, you cannot have a whole
30 chicken salad without chicken. This is boneless skinless chicken breast
that I cooked ahead of time in my instant pot. You can also make it on your
stove. Or if you're in a big hurry, you can swap in a store-bought
rotisserie chicken; that works really well too. We have our celery going in. The
next ingredient in our whole 30 chicken salad and in any classic Waldorf
salad at least as far as I'm concerned is grapes.
I have seedless red grapes that I have cut in half. They're really crisp and
cool and they add an natural sweetness to the chicken
salad that is absolutely delicious, plus a bonus serving of fruit. We have our
green onions that we chopped up, our dill. One or two big pinches for now.
I can always add more later on if I feel like it's missing a little something. And
then this is going to stand aside, and I'm going to stir up our dressing. Now my
big gripe with most chicken salad recipes is that they're just so heavy on
the mayo. It just isn't an ingredient that I really enjoy. I think it tastes
kind of flat. One substitute that I'll do sometimes is a Greek yogurt but I wanted
to make this whole 30 chicken salad dairy free and I also wanted to show you
an ingredient that has become one of my personal favorites in a lot of my
healthy recipes like this one and that is tahini.
So this is going to be the base of our dressing in place of the mayo. To
give it lots of flavor, I'm going to add some garlic powder. You could add minced
garlic if you want to, but I'm going be totally honest: I absolutely hate mincing
garlic and avoid it at all costs. In this recipe, garlic powder is just fine. Got to
have some salt and pepper, the heart of flavoring any great recipe. Tahini is a
little bit of a richer ingredient, it's why you don't need too much, and to
balance it out, I like to add some apple cider vinegar. That really gives this
chicken salad a nice amount of pop and brightness. So whisk this together. As
you can see this is pretty thick right now so to get it to more of a true
dressing consistency, I'm going to add some hot water. You can just add the
hot water a little at a time until it's nice and pourable, and if, say, the hot
water is still not doing the trick, if you need to you can actually pop this
bowl right into the microwave. The heat will help smooth it out. All right this
looks just perfect. It's nice and pourable, and it's going to coat our
chicken beautifully. So now we just need to add it all together. Pour my dressing
over the top and then with a spoon, I'm going to stir it all together. Oh I can
smell the nuttiness of the tahini, the freshness of the dill; this is a really
nice combination. All right, now we have just one more
ingredient that in my book no chicken salad, whole 30, healthy, or otherwise,
would be without and that is toasted nuts. Pay attention:
Toasted. If you are not toasting your nuts, you are just missing out on serious
deliciousness in life. Now there is a bit of debate over which kind of nut is
most traditional in Waldorf chicken salad. Some people feel that it has to be
walnuts. If that is you, feel free to use walnuts. This is your chicken salad. I am
doing almonds today. Give it one last good stir. And now all that is left is to
plate it up. Now of course you can put this on a croissant, which is what
childhood Erin would do, but since we are trying to be a little lighter and
leaner, I am putting them inside lettuce cups. This is a beautiful head of Boston
Bibb lettuce. If you can't find bib, you can always use romaine. And what I like
to do is just pull off these outer leaves and then I pile the chicken salad
right inside. This recipe is fantastic for meal prep. You can enjoy it inside
lettuce cups right after you make it or you can actually put this entire bowl in
your refrigerator and save it for later on in the week.
In addition to enjoying this inside lettuce cups, sometimes I will do it
over chopped romaine and serve it chopped salad style. When I do that I
usually like to make a little bit extra of the tahini dressing to drizzle over
the top. It's also great on a toasted slice of whole wheat bread and sometimes
when I'm hungry, I will just munch it directly out of the refrigerator, because
it's delicious that way. There you have it! My absolute favorite healthy chicken
salad that is completely dairy-free whole 30 approved, but most
importantly absolutely delicious. I hope you love it. Be sure to subscribe, like,
and follow my page. I share a new healthy recipe every week. Bon Appetit!