Creamy Chicken & Vegetable Salad

Serves:  6

Preparation:  10 minutes

Cooking Time:  15 minutes

Category: Chicken / Flexitarian

Plan: Can be prepared a day in advance

Difficulty:  Easy

Course:  Main

Cuisine:  English

This is a Guest Recipe by Lisa Bryan of Downshiftology.com and, in my view is a superb way to entertain your guests with surprisingly little effort.

This wonderful chicken salad is full of fresh Summer vegetables mixed in a simple sauce of plain yogurt and a little mayonnaise and flavoured with fresh herbs.   Each mouthful is a complete revelation of different tastes, sweet, savoury and nutty!

We tweaked the original recipe to mainly yogurt with a much smaller portion of mayonnaise but still incorporating the fresh herbs.

We made this for a party this Summer and everyone absolutely loved it and not a scrap was left, which meant I had to make it all over again for the family.   

Utensils

• Large pan for boiling water
• Chopping board
• Sharp knife
• Container for chicken if preparing in advance and refrigerating
• Roasting tray for flaked almonds
• Large bowl to assemble fruit and salad vegetables
• Large bowl to mix mayonnaise
• Serving platter

Ingredients

For the Poached Chicken

• 1 kilo (2lbs) boneless chicken breasts
• One chicken stock cube
• Bunch of fresh herbs
• One small onion, peeled and quartered
• One stick of celery, chopped roughly
• 2 bay leaves
• A few fresh pepper corns
• Modest amount of sea salt

For the Salad

• Half a cup flaked almonds, lightly toasted
• One cup of good quality mayonnaise
• One cup of plain Greek Style Yogurt
• One tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1-2 cups red seedless grapes, halved or quartered
• 4 sticks of celery, diced
• One bunch Spring Onions, finely sliced using all of them after trimming the roots
• One handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
• One handful of fresh tarragon, finely chopped (we prefer French Tarragon)
• Juice of one lemon, plus grated zest
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Place the chicken breasts into a pan of boiling water plus a chicken stock cube and the other remaining ingredients, cover and simmer on a lowish heat for about 15-20 minutes, remove from heat and then leave to cool.   
   
   
2. The chicken can then be diced and stored covered in the fridge overnight ready for assembly.
   
   
3. Meantime, heat the oven to 200C and place the flaked almonds on a flat roasting tray into the oven for about 5 minutes - you need to watch carefully as they must be removed as soon as they turn a gentle golden colour.   If preparing the day before, store these in an air tight container.
   
   
4. Prepare the grapes, celery, spring onions and herbs all finely chopped or diced and set aside.
   
   
5. Mix the yogurt and mayonnaise together, adding the dijon mustard, lemon juice, zest and seasoning.
   
   
6. Finally, mix together  into a large serving dish the chicken, vegetables, herbs, almonds and yogurt mayonnaise sauce - this is now ready to be served.
   
   
7. You could serve this with hot buttery new salad potatoes and a simple green salad to accompany.