- Hey guys!
John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen we're making the
ultimate chicken salad.
It's like the best thing to have when you
don't want the oven on all day,
and you want something delicious that you can just
pull out of the fridge and make everybody happy.
And there's a couple of little ingredients
in here that make all the difference.
Let's get started!
I'm adding a very generous half cup
of slivered almonds onto a baking sheet,
and we're going to toast them at 350
for about 10 minutes.
Just make sure you stir them around
halfway through so nothing gets burnt.
For this recipe, you could use like maybe
four chicken breasts and end up with
a pound and half to two pounds of
nice, diced, chicken for this,
but I feel like this is perfect for the
summer when you don't want the oven all day,
so I just picked up a rotisserie chicken
from the market, and we're going to break it down,
it'll end up yielding about a pound and a half of
pure delicious meat.
And I love dark meat, so this way
you get a little bit of everything mixed in there.
(ascending chimes)
My chicken's been broken down totally,
so now all I have is that delicious meat.
No skin, no bones, no anything.
Give it a rough chop.
This is kind of up to you, but I like to have
larger pieces of chicken in my salad.
Now that my chicken's been all chopped up,
I'm going to set it aside for just a moment,
and work on this bowl.
I want this to be all in one bowl,
so as few dishes as possible here.
So I have one cup or 240 milliliters,
if you're going to try and press it in that way,
of mayonnaise.
We're going to add that in to my bowl.
I don't want my salad to be swimming in mayo,
I actually don't love the stuff that much (chuckles).
Some of you might be mayo fanatics, or have
totally opposite mayo antipathy.
I'm adding the juice of half of a lemon here.
It's probably like two tablespoons,
if you're measuring it out.
And then we're going to mix this up.
Ooh, already I'm loving it.
I'm adding in kind of a stingy teaspoon of salt.
We can add more later, but I think
this'll be good enough.
And I want to add the salt in right now
so it fully dissolves in the mayonnaise
and nothing gets little salty pockets,
because that would be so annoying.
You can add black pepper kind of to taste slash
sight, but I want to have maybe about
half a teaspoon in here.
I'll be back in a second, this can take a second.
I need a power grinder.
My last and secret ingredient is a tablespoon
of a really nice balsamic vinegar.
This is going to hold everything together flavor-wise,
and add so much.
Don't be frightened of it, it is amazing.
I also like that it takes away that super white
color of the mayonnaise, and brings it
a little closer to something natural.
There we go.
Now we're going to dump our chicken in.
We're going to fold the chicken in now.
And we're done.
Just kidding, just kidding, there's a lot more to do.
But I wanted to get the chicken nice and coated,
because the other ingredients are
a little bit delicate, and we don't want to
like mush them up.
We want them to be intact at the end of this.
This'll get set aside, as as we add the
ingredients in, we'll pop them into this bowl,
fold at the very end.
We're going to chop one cup of celery,
so let's get started.
Nice and thin pieces, you don't want giant celery chunks.
Just little pieces of delicious crunch.
Okay.
So most of my slices are nice and thin,
this is a perfect size.
One cup of celery, in you go.
On to the next, which is going to be the grapes.
I'm using Muscat grapes, they're super sweet.
You could also use red grapes, though,
for a nice bit of contrast.
This is the easiest way to cut grapes in half,
in case you're wondering.
And I'm using measurements, but you can just use
general proportions and kind of eyeball it.
It's really up to you.
Like, do you like a little bit more sweetness in,
or more crunch?
Go at it.
Do whatever you'd like.
It's your salad.
One cup of halved grapes, in you go.
♪ I need to peel that apple♪
Ch ch ch ch ch
♪ I wonder where the apple peeler is♪
Peeling a small apple, I'll be dicing it
and using half a cup.
You can add more if you want more.
(groovy music)
Generous half cup, in you go.
I have two green onions that I've washed
and peeled the excess away from,
just going to trim the top
and the bottom,
not in that order.
And we're going to give them a nice
thin slice, this'll add a little bit of bite in,
and just be delicious.
Mind your fingers!
This goes into the salad as well.
This is so easy, and by the way,
I ate almost an entire batch of this yesterday,
and I had it for lunch and dinner,
and it was delicious with nothing else.
Took the leaves off of a few sprigs of thyme,
I'll end up with about a tablespoon.
And now I'm working on the tarragon,
fresh tarragon and chicken is a match made in heaven,
especially with something sweet like grapes in there.
Okay, want about two tablespoons of this,
but you can go crazy and double that!
As much as you'd like, really.
It could be a tarragon salad, it's amazing.
Save a little bit for the top, though,
to use as garnish.
Just a little hint from me.
That's good, let's give it a chop.
Little bit more tarragon, shhhh.
For me, it's like garlic, where you can just add a
ton more in and it's not going to be a bad thing.
Into the bowl.
The last thing we're going to add is the
toasted almond slivers batch that we did earlier,
let's go get that.
All right, so I totally toasted, like,
a handful or two extra.
Going to put that aside and use it as garnish.
In you go.
All right, now for a gentle fold.
This smells so good, I can't tell you.
And by the way, you could totally add other
sweet elements in here, too.
Or if you don't like grapes, you could sub it out
for dried cranberries, dried apricots,
just cut into slivers, is really, really good actually.
Or, you know, peaches.
Whatever you'd like.
I think it's, like, a really nice salad for the summer.
Okay, that's it.
(laughs)
I put my salad in a pretty bowl,
and then I added some grapes,
little bit of extra tarragon,
and some of the reserved toasted almonds,
just to make it look pretty and nice.
And now, it's time for a bite.
So good.
That balsamic vinegar,
and the tarragon,
just add a ton of extra flavor, and
I guarantee you're going to love it.
If you like this recipe, you're going to love it
on a cheesy sage biscuit.
Click up there for that, that is a-maz-ing.
Thanks so much for watching,
if you like my videos, hit that like button
and subscribe, and I'll see you soon!