This is one of my top five two favorite chicken salad recipes ever, and my daughter’s favorite of all. It’s a fresh and delightful salad of roasted chicken (I use rotisserie), cranberries, pecans, perfectly blended in an incredible honey-yogurt-mayo dressing.

I have historically made it when my daughter had friends over, as it became a top request at her spend-the-night parties. It is a wonderful make-ahead dish for camping, as it is good for lunch or just a quick snack. It’s so easy to make, and you may never buy fast-food chicken salad again, and certainly not grocery store ones! 

ingredients

1 cooked rotisserie chicken (about 4 cups chicken)
2 ribs celery, diced
1 C sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 C chopped pecans, lightly roasted
3/4 C Blue Plate mayo
3/4 C plain yogurt
1/3 C honey
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper

Pull the chicken off the bones, using both the white meat and the dark meat. Dark meat is wonderful and delicious and cluck full of nutrients, and you don’t need to be among the haters.  If you’re going to eat meat, then getting all uppity about white vs. dark does not equate with grace or manners.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take that chicken and pull it apart, and then cut it a little bit into smaller pieces. Fold in the cranberries and celery.

I’m a big proponent of ordering good pecans from South Georgia and freezing them for later use, but in this recipe it’s okay to use the grocery-store bought ones. To roast them, you can put them in the oven at 325 degrees for about 5 minutes. It’s completely fine to include them un-roasted as well.

Now, for the dressing. Combine the mayo, yogurt, honey, salt and pepper. Add about 3/4 of it to the chicken mixture, and see if it is the consistency that you like. If you want it to be more moist, go ahead and add the rest.

This princess chicken salad is best served simply with crackers and some fruit – or with a couple of other salads, such as fruit salad and spinach-strawberry salad. However, it will work on a croissant with lettuce.