chicken salad | Slice of Southern Pie

Does anyone else watch the Kardashians? For some crazy reason, I am so fascinated with their lives. I suppose it’s my reality-television-guilty-pleasure. My favorites are Khloe & Lamar tho. ~~Sometimes~~ All the time, I feel like my family should have their own reality show. I’m sure it would be much more entertaining, realistic, & hilarious. But that opportunity has not yet come.

Anyways…chicken salad is good too! Great, actually. I love it on a sandwich or crackers in the summertime. Or even rolled up in a fresh rosemary tortilla from HEB, yum! My chicken salad has been revised several times. I’ve taken advice from a handful of people & applied what I thought necessary. Anyone who tries it says its their favorite chicken salad. There’s no going back once you’ve tried it, so be warned. Its a phenomenal recipe.

It calls for only a few ingredients: shredded chicken, mayo, sour cream, red grapes, celery, & pecans.

For this specific batch, I used leftover fajita chicken because thats what needed using up. I also recommend using leftover fried chicken, it has great flavor that boosts the overall salad. Just peel off the fried part (the skin) & shred the chicken as you would a rotisserie chicken, or a boiled chicken, which are both fine choices also. For the easiest shredding, pull the chicken from the bone in large chunks & drop into a stand mixer. Using the paddle, let it go on slow/medium speed for a few minutes & wa-la you have perfectly shredded chicken. You could use the food processor too but I think that always makes it too small & is just plain risky. Of course, if you’re like my Nana she insists on doing it the “old-fashioned” way: by hand & with a fork.

Combine 6 c. of chicken with 3/4 c. mayo & 3/4 sour cream.

Stir together until all chicken is fully-coated in the wet ingredients.

Add 1 c.grapes-sliced in half, 1/2 c. celery-chopped, & 1/2 c. pecans-chopped.

A trick to slicing multiple grapes at a time, is to put a layer of grapes between 2 deli lids & slide your knife across the middle, through the belly of the fruit. I used pappasito’s container lids. The lids from potato salad, etc. would work perfectly. The same thing works for cherry tomatoes too! Learned this from Rachael Ray.

With a quick stir, mix it all up. Then let it sit in the fridge for at least a half hour or so. The longer it sits though, the better the flavors will merry together.