Chicken Salad

I don’t know about how it is at your house, but at my house we all enjoy chicken salad. The only problem, we don’t always agree on the way it should be prepared. My husband likes basic chicken salad. I like that too, but most of the time I prefer “fancy chicken salad” by adding more ingredients like pecans, golden raisins, and curry powder. Over the years I learned to divide my recipe making a batch a basic chicken salad first and setting aside about half. Then enhancing the remaining salad with the ingredients I enjoy best. It’s what I call fancy chicken salad. There are so many ways to make delicious chicken salad, and I thought it might be fun to share these two recipes with you in case you and your family have the same ideas about chicken salad.

Basic Chicken Salad:

• 1 pound chicken, cooked and chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• ¼- ½ sweet onion, chopped
• ½- ¾ cup mayonnaise
• Juice of half a lemon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper

In a large bowl, stir together chicken, celery, onion, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Fancy Chicken Salad:

• Reserve half of the basic chicken salad and add the following ingredients
• ½ cup dried cranberries
• ½ cup golden raisins
• ½ cup pecans, chopped
• 1 teaspoon curry powder

Note: For a lighter version, substitute half of the mayonnaise with nonfat Greek yogurt. Both recipes are best made at least 2 hours ahead.