Lighter Fare

I was first introduced to Chicken Salad Chick during a visit to Summerville, South Carolina. If you love chicken salad, you will love this place. The idea is simple – chicken salad, in various forms, savory, sweet, spicy or mild. It is amazing. My favorite part is that you can get 2 or 3 scoops of different variations on the same platter, so you can try a variety each time.

Much to my delight, we have a Chicken Salad Chick coming to our neck of the woods soon! I am so excited for it to open, but must wait patiently.

In the meantime, chicken salad really is a great option for this time of year. It is loaded with protein, but can be a lighter meal on a hot, busy evening, or a speedy, healthy lunch while working from home or powering through virtual school.

I have shared another recipe with you for a more typical chicken salad, with grapes and pecans. You can find that recipe here. I make that recipe quite a lot, but this week, I fancied trying a chicken salad with a different flavor profile.

This time, I thought I would try a Chicken Salad Caesar Style. I found something similar on the internet, at www.twohealthykitchens.com. This recipe starts by cooking the chicken in the slow cooker, then adding the sauce at the end. I made it even easier by using precooked chicken.

I have sung the praises of the Costco rotisserie chicken before and I will praise it for days to come. But sometimes I am short of refrigerator space and want some fresh precooked chicken to work with but don’t have room for a whole bird. Enter the prepackaged pulled chicken from Costco!! You can find this package in the cold case with the pre-made meals. It comes in a pack that is approximately 2 lb. 10 oz. It is the same chicken from the fresh rotisserie chickens, but is already pulled for you, vacuum-sealed and can be frozen as-is, or divided into smaller packages and frozen.

So, I used this time-saving chicken, but made a variation of the sauce from the aforementioned website. Simply mix up a healthy sauce of plain Greek yogurt, Parmesan cheese, a touch of Dijon mustard, a splash of Worcestershire sauce and some other spices and mix it in with diced chicken. Let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour to meld all the flavors and that’s it.

This chicken salad is just as flexible as traditional chicken salad. You can make it into a sandwich, or serve it on a gorgeous flaky croissant. It is delicious wrapped into romaine leaves, making it even healthier. Or you can throw it onto a bed of greens and add some croutons to make it an elevated chicken Caesar salad.

I will continue to wait for our Chicken Salad Chick to open, but in the meantime, the Costco chicken makes it so easy to play around at home. If you have a chicken salad variation you love, I would love to try it out.