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Mustard Chicken Salad

Source of Recipe

From "Barefoot Contessa: How Easy is That?" by Ina Garten


Recipe Introduction

"This salad was a Barefoot Contessa staple for twenty years. Over the years, I've intensified the flavor by adding more mustard to the sauce and lots of fresh tarragon. A few years ago, I experimented with cooking chicken for salads and I found that the best—and easiest!—way to cook chicken was to roast it on the bone rather than poach skinless chicken breasts. Instead of having big pots of boiling water taking the flavor out of the chicken, roasting them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper actually adds flavor to the chicken."

List of Ingredients

â—¦ 2 whole (4 split) chicken breasts, bone in, skin on (3 pounds)
â—¦ Good olive oil
â—¦ Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
â—¦ 5 cups small broccoli florets
â—¦ 1 ½ cups good mayonnaise
â—¦ ½ cup Dijon mustard
â—¦ ¼ cup whole-grain mustard
â—¦ 2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
â—¦ 2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon leaves
â—¦ 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved


Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan and rub the skin with olive oil. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked. Set aside until cool enough to handle. Discard the skin and bones and dice the chicken in large bite-size pieces.

Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice water and bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the broccoli florets to the boiling water and cook for 1 minute only, until crisp-tender. Drain, and place the broccoli into the bowl of ice water until cool. This will stop the cooking and set the bright green color. Drain well.

For the dressing, whisk together the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, whole-grain mustard, vinegar, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 ½ teaspoons pepper. Add enough dressing to the warm chicken to moisten well. (Warm chicken absorbs the sauce best.) Add the tarragon, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes and mix gently to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to develop. Sprinkle with salt and serve at room temperature.

Serves 4 to 5