chicken salad

 

In my last few weeks of pregnancy, I got on a chicken salad kick.  Apparently, I haven't been able to shake it.  There's just something so delicious and refreshing about a pile of chicken salad on a bed of lettuce (and don't even get me started about the awesomeness of chicken salad sandwiches). 

We've had a chicken salad recipe for years that I've always loved, but recently I had to shake things up a bit.  The originally recipe calls for mandarin oranges, grapes, and almonds.  I am not a huge fan of mandarins (let's face it...I'm a mandarin hater), so I generally substitute a clementine or naval orange.  Then, my grocery store was out of grapes!!!  I didn't know such a thing could happen, but apparently it did...to every grocery store in my vicinity.  And I thought I had almonds at home, but nope.  Time to improvise.

The results were beyond delicious.  I think this new version is going to forever replace the old one.  Here's the skinny...

Chicken Salad
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup seedless grapes, cut in half OR 1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup chopped almonds, toasted OR 1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 can (11 oz.) mandarin oranges, drained OR 1/2 naval orange, diced
1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
1 t. grated onion or dried minced onion

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir to mix.  Yields 4 cups.