Five ways to use recipes for chicken salad to serve quick, economical, healthy and thoroughly delicious meals!
It's been often repeated that there is such a thing as too much chicken showing up at the dinner table. Naturally, it's because Mom is trying to make the food budget work and chicken is on the short list of reasonably priced meats. However, after a while, your family is no longer fooled. “Hey, Mom, what version of chicken are we having tonight?” Chicken is, indeed, a versatile food, so it's not time to scratch it off your shopping list. You just need to take a different tact in your presentation! Recipes for chicken salad opens up a whole new culinary opportunity for the inventive cook.
Chicken is a mainstay in almost every cuisine around the world. It's mild flavor and firm texture lends itself well to a huge number of combinations with other foods and seasonings. For example, chicken and curry go together like two peas in a pod. Caribbean countries combine chicken with Jamaican jerk, or with a bevy of tropical fruits in their recipes. For chicken salad success, you want to use the chicken as the perfect foil to whatever seasonings and foods will present some exotica on the plate.
Recipes for chicken salad may be used to fill a sandwich, make a wrap or be the centerpiece of an out of the ordinary chef's style salad. Here are a few ideas for gourmet dishes, which may escape detection as chicken based creations, at least until everyone's tasted and applauded!
For a Chinese take on recipes for chicken salad, take a look in the supermarket's Chinese food section. You'll find a selection of various marinades. Choose one that suits your taste. Marinate boneless, skinless chicken breasts for at least 1-2 hours. Remove the chicken and cut in julienned strips. When cooked, set aside. For each serving, start with a bed of crisp lettuce, layering sesame seeds, green onions, hard chow mein noodles, cucumbers and sliced water chestnuts. This chicken salad recipe is adaptable to both a lettuce wrap for a light lunch or the conventional chef's style salad. The marinade gives chicken a whole new meaning.
Recipes for chicken salad can just as well morph into a Caribbean wonder, using pineapple, mangoes and melons to surround a nice mound of diced chicken in a curry-infused, 3:1 ratio of mayonnaise and sour cream. Season this salad with fresh cilantro for a dish which transports your taste buds to that faraway island. An alternatively delightful mixture may be made by making a curried sauce with coconut milk.
Recipes for chicken salad are good candidates for improvising cooks. Foods which enhance the flavor of chicken are many. Red Spanish onions, sweet yellow onions, sliced olives and celery work well with chicken and can appear as a hoagie, wrap or chef's salad, with equally good results. Diced jalapenos, chopped or sliced hard boiled eggs, baby corn and diced red bell peppers are yet more additions to an impromptu recipe for chicken salad.
Of course, don't ignore the old American chicken salad, made with diced chicken, sliced celery, diced onions and pimientos, all mixed up with mayo and (or) sour cream. This is great in a pita pocket.
So long as you vary your combinations and seasonings, I'll bet you can get at least one more chicken dish on the menu, with no complaints!
Donald Trosper
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