A Roya-l Lunch

I am always hunting for new ideas to jazz up the lunch hour standards: a tuna sandwich, a garden salad, leftovers... Blah, blah, blah.


And then I saw this post from a friend and fellow blogger Roya (Dirt Don't Hurt) and have been dying to try it: Curried Chicken Salad.  Why haven't I thought of this before?!

Roya's Pic. YUM!

Here is her recipe as she posted a week or so ago:


"This recipe can be eaten right away, but it is better if it's refrigerated for a few hours.
This can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled!
I used leftovers from a roasted chicken, and wish I had made more.


1 cup chicken, chopped up small
1/2 apple, chopped finely
¼ bulb fennel, finely chopped (or 1 stalk celery, but the fennel makes this amazing)
1 handful of dried cranberries 
Handful of chopped nuts (totally optional)


1 T mayo
Splash of apple cider vinegar (to taste)
Salt and pepper
Dash of celery salt
Curry powder (optional)


Mix all together, then add the curry powder to make it as yellow as you like it.


I start with just a dab of mayo (I don’t like it to be too “wet”, just a little coating, and add more as needed. I’ve made it with greek yogurt, and it’s just not the same. You could probably go 50/50 yogurt/mayo though. It’s really not that much mayonnaise ;)
I added about ¼ cup of leftover faro which added some good chewiness to it, but that is totally not necessary. I can see quinoa or brown rice being good too.


Served in lettuce wraps, or over a TON of cabbage, this is the most delicious thing ever. Eaten by the spoonful out of the Tupperware in your fridge it is also delicious ;) "

How could I NOT want to eat this?!  Having just returned from Poland, I realized this morning that there is almost NOTHING in our fridge that is still edible. And then I found this in the back of the fridge:

And this:

Oh, heck yeah, it is ON!  Although I didn't have the exact ingredients specified by Roya (I would have LOVED fennel in this), I whipped up a close approximation, with a few additions of my own.

Although I normally prefer to use leftover chicken for my chicken salads, in a pinch the Kirkland chicken is pretty yummy.  It's packed in water so no extra fat, calories, or flavor, and has really large chunks of white meat.

Kirkland Chicken

I opted to add a little bit of red onion.  I add onion to almost every recipe, including salads.

Red Onion

I definitely opted to add nuts to my salad.  I love the extra richness and crunch these toasted pecans added to the salad.  If a recipe calls for nuts of any kind, I usually try and buy the biggest bag I can budget for, and keep the remainder for future use, like today!

Toasted Pecans

Even without the dressing and the apples, I was already salivating a little at this point.

Salad pre-dressing (sans apples)

So for the dressing the debate raged: Veganaise or Mayo?

Veganaise: 90 Calories, 9 Grams of Fat

Olive Oil Mayo: 45 Calories, 4 Grams of Fat

Guess who won?  Yep, the mayo.  I always mix my dressings, whether it is for potato salad, cole slaw, or in this case, chicken salad, in a separate bowl.  That way if I screw up the dressing I haven't botched the whole meal.  In my case I added LOTS of curry (very yellow), garlic powder, a squeeze of spicy brown mustard, and a touch of cayenne to my dressing.  I like my curry with some heat!

Curry-Mayo Dressing

Mix it all together, cover and chill.  Waiting was the hardest part.

Chicken salad dressed, with apples

Finally lunch time arrived!  I dressed my greens with the barest kiss of EVOO and some fresh ground salt and pepper, topped with the chicken salad, and took this quick picture before I dove in.

How pretty is that?

And there it is, sitting on my desk as I type this, except that by now, I have an almost empty plate!

LUNCH!

Recipes like these are so quick, easy, and flexible depending on what you have on hand.  In my case, purple instead of green cabbage, celery instead of fennel, green apples instead of red, raisins instead of cranberries.  It was delicious anyways.


Thanks again to Roya for a great idea and a happy lunch.