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Classic Creamy Chicken Salad

Source of Recipe

Cook's Illustrated


Recipe Introduction

In our view, white meat from the breast is best suited to chicken salad. Roasting gave the chicken a deeper, richer flavor and a meatier, drier, denser texture, which helped the salads really shine. we discovered along the way that all of our tasters preferred salads with chicken that had been shredded by hand. The chicken meat seemed more tender in the smaller shreds, and the texture of the whole salad was more interesting. With the desire to keep the chicken salad simple and straightforward, we added just celery for crunch, scallions for bite, lemon juice for brightness, and parsley or tarragon for flavor, and then we bound it all together lightly with a little mayonnaise. The result was a simple, and simply perfect, chicken salad. In addition to the parsley leaves, you can flavor the salad with 2 tablespoons of minced fresh tarragon or basil leaves. Serves six.

List of Ingredients

1 recipe Simple Roast Chicken Breasts, skinned and boned, meat shredded into bite-size pieces (about 5 cups)

2 medium celery ribs, cut into small dice
2 medium scallions, white and green parts, minced
3/4 to 1 cup mayonnaise
1-1/2 to 2 tablespoons juice from 1 small lemon
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
Salt and ground black pepper





Recipe

Mix all salad ingredients together in large bowl, including salt and pepper to taste. Serve. (Can be covered and refrigerated overnight.)


Simple Roast Chicken Breasts
2 large, whole bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts (at least 1-1/2 pounds each)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Salt

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Set breasts on small, foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Brush with oil and sprinkle generously with salt. Roast until meat thermometer inserted into thickest part of breast registers 160 degrees, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Removethe skin & bones & discard; shred the meat & continue with the salad recipe.


***To shred; slice along the center bone to separate the two pieces of breast meat. Insertyour fingers into the cut made by the knife & gently plry breast meat off the bone in two pieces. Cut each breast piece into thirds. Use your hands to pull apart each breast piece & shred it into small chunks. (Breasts can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for 2 days.)