Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Chicken Salad w/ Cranberries & Toasted Pecans

This evening I made a quick and easy dinner because I'm working on another recipe project and I didn't have a lot of time. I'm still in full fledged cranberry mode here so I wanted to find a way to wind cranberries into my meal. I actually had one of my Cranberry Walnut Power Bagels with butter and "cranberry sauce jam" for lunch and wanted to enjoy cranberries again with my dinner. 

I had some leftover cooked chicken in the fridge so I decided to make an autumn version of chicken salad for our dinner. It was so easy to do and so good. I used my Cranberry Orange Sauce to add cranberries to the chicken salad and it was SO good! I also added some McCormick Chipotle & Roasted Garlic Seasoning instead of salt and pepper and it added a nice flavor. I figured hubby would turn his nose up to adding the cranberries so I initially separated his chicken salad out before adding the cranberry sauce but he saw mine and said he wanted that too! I served it in crisp little artisan romaine lettuce cups. I will definitely be making this chicken salad again. I snapped a couple photos and included the easy peasy recipe for it below. Enjoy!





Chicken Salad w/ Cranberries & Toasted Pecans

Ingredients:

4 cups diced cooked chicken breast
1/4 cup diced celery
2 teaspoons finely minced onion
Mayonnaise, to taste (I used a heaping 1/4 cup)
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Fresh no sugar added cranberry sauce, to taste (I added a rounded 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans

Directions:

Combine all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Serve in lettuce cups or on grain-free rolls

5 comments:

Charlotte Moore said...

Yum!!! Looks so nice on the plate too.

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Thanks Charlotte! It tasted really good too. :-)

Cjcrochet1knit2 said...

So glad to see this recipe here...I promised the family I would make some chicken salad with cranberries that was GF, (just prior to going GF, we bought some cranberry almond chicken salad at the store...and then we found out it has wheat in it....) but hadn't gotten that far yet. Now with leftover turkey, I figured I'd make some Cranberry Turkey salad. I didn't have everything I needed, so subbed out a couple things.

Finely diced walnuts for pecans
Golden delicious apple for the celery, but I added a little celery salt.

I made a "subbed" version of the cranberry orange sauce for the cranberry part. I didn't have any orange zest, or extract, so used the rest of the apple.
Everyone has tasted it, and they said that it tastes great..so thank you for the recipes. :-)
Now I have to go make more of those delicious sesame seed buns.

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi cjcrochet,

So happy you were inspired to make your own version of the cranberry turkey salad. It's a great combination of flavors, isn't it. Your version sounds delicious with apples!

It also sounds like you have made my sesame seed buns before, too. I hope you are enjoying them. Thanks so much for letting me know you enjoy the recipes! :-)

Cjcrochet1knit2 said...

A few times already...they are SO good. Had to make a double batch the last time I made them. Burgers for dinner one night, and sandwiches the next.