Hooray for picnic season! From impromptu backyard lunches to outdoor concert series, excuses to stretch out on a grassy lawn abound. Enter what I affectionately refer to as “picnic salads” – that adaptable category of recipes that, while they contain little to no lettuce, yet are still included in the salad realm. Think pasta salad, egg and tuna salad, potato salad and even chunky, vegetable-laden grain salads that are best served cold and are easy to both serve and eat.
Of them all, chicken salad has always been a personal favorite and is one of those dishes, right along with deviled eggs, that I simply feel compelled to serve nearly anytime I entertain. This is likely due to a deeply entrenched sense of Midwestern hospitality, but also because folks simply adore the stuff. Chicken salad itself certainly isn’t a rarity, but really good chicken salad can be hard to find and never fails to please.
The first step in making next level chicken salad is to use freshly roasted, whole chicken. While store-bought rotisserie chicken will certainly work in a pinch, it won’t yield a result as deeply flavored and succulent. Many recipes call for slowly poaching the whole chicken in a large pot of salted water, which does result in exceptionally plush, juicy chicken. I, however, prefer to roast the chicken slowly in the oven, or a slow cooker when the weather is warm, in order to retain the rich flavorful jus that accumulates during roasting, which is then incorporated into the recipe. This imparts not only additional moisture but also rich, savory flavors and reduces the need for excessive quantities of mayonnaise.
Once your chicken is roasted and shredded, the next essential ingredient is a good helping of minced celery and onion. These ingredients often present a duo of challenges. The onions can often be overpowering and sharp in their pungency, and both celery and onion have a high water content and can quickly lose crunch and texture after a day in the fridge. To mitigate this, I’ve taken to macerating the onion and celery in salt and sugar to draw out the excess moisture and soften the onion’s bite. After a thorough rinse, very little of the sugar or salt remains, but the vegetables have shrunk slightly and lost much of their water. I use this technique not just for chicken salad but for any cold picnic salad.
Chicken salad master recipe
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, about 4 pounds
Salt and black pepper
½ red onion, minced (about ½ cup)
2-3 stalks celery, minced (about ½ each)
1 teaspoon each salt and sugar
⅓-2/3 cup best quality prepared mayonnaise (such as Duke’s)
1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, to taste
Juice of ½ lemon
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or tarragon, or a combination
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the chicken liberally with salt and pepper and place it in a small roasting pan or 9-by-13-inch baking dish, then bake in the oven for about 90 minutes until a thermometer placed into the deepest part of the meat reaches 160 degrees. Or place the chicken in a greased insert of a slow cooker and cook on high for two hours, then reduce the heat to low and cook for two hours more until the meat is cooked through. Set the chicken aside to cool in the pan with its juices
While it rests, finely mince the celery and onion and toss it with the salt in sugar in a small bowl. Let sit for 30 minutes, then rinse thoroughly in a fine sieve before squeezing dry in a paper towel and transferring to a mixing bowl.
When cool enough to handle, pull the meat off the bones and roughly chop it into ½-inch chunks, then return the chopped meat to the roasting dish with the pan juices. Mix the pulled chicken with the juices, then add it to the mixing bowl with the celery and onion. Add mayonnaise to coat the chicken – the amount used will depend on the volume of jus yielded by the chicken during roasting – along with the mustard, lemon juice and herbs. Season to taste with salt, pepper and additional lemon juice as needed. Chill thoroughly before serving, at least four hours.
Variations
For an everyday, more spreadable style of chicken salad, finely mince the chicken and jus in a food processor to roughly ¼- to ⅛-inch dice before adding the mayonnaise and remaining ingredients. Be careful not to overprocess so it becomes pasty.
Add some lemon zest and swap out the tarragon for other herbs such as dill or basil.
Add one-two teaspoons curry powder along with ¼ cup dried cranberries and/or diced dried apricots and ½ cup toasted slivered almonds.
Add one cup halved red grapes and ¾ cup chopped toasted walnuts or pecans.
Add ½ cup to ¾ cup julienned sun-dried tomatoes, ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese, one teaspoon dried Italian seasoning mix and two tablespoons minced basil instead of tarragon. Serve with baby arugula.