Southern Chicken Salad

Published May 20, 2024 | Updated May 22, 2024 | By Laura

A big scoop of Southern Chicken Salad makes for a delicious lunch or snack. It’s also a perfect addition to your next get-together!

A scoop of chicken salad being spread on a cracker with fruit and veggies on the side

This chicken salad is quick to mix up, perfect for a light meal and beautiful for entertaining. When we had our restaurant, it was one of our most popular dishes. To this day, my mom and I still get requests for the recipe. It’s too yummy to keep hidden, so here it is for you to enjoy!

There are many variations of chicken salad and ways to serve it, but this is how we prepared it every day at the restaurant. It’s creamy with a perfect crispness from the pecans and veggies and lovely sweetness from the grapes and sweet relish. You can easily adjust the ingredient amounts to your personal preference. It’s excellent served on a bed of lettuce, with crackers, on a croissant or on light bread.

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Table of Contents

What You’ll Need

Ingredient Amounts Listed in the Recipe Card Below

Cooked Chicken
Celery
Pecans
Red Onion
Dijon Mustard
Sweet Relish
Sugar
Mayonnaise
Grapes

Tools You’ll Need

Hand Mixer

Why You’ll like this Recipe

This delightful dish is not only perfect for entertaining, but also transports easily, making it an ideal choice for gatherings with friends and family. Its quick and easy assembly allows you to whip it up in no time, and it serves as a great light meal or snack to have on hand throughout the week. Bursting with color, crunch, and creaminess, this dish strikes the perfect balance between savory and sweet, ensuring it will be a hit at any event or simply enjoyed during a busy week.

How to Make this Recipe

To a large bowl, combine chicken, celery, pecans, red onion, dijon mustard, sweet relish, sugar and mayonnaise. Mix with a hand mixer until well combined.

Fold in grapes.

Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container until ready to serve.

Tips and Substitutions

Nearly any cooked chicken will work in this recipe. We use freshly boiled in salt water chicken in ours. If using a higher sodium or seasoned chicken like a rotisserie or leftover seasoned grilled chicken, you will likely need to add additional sweetness with sugar and/or grapes and it will likely need a little more mayonnaise after it sits 1-2 days in the fridge.
Grapes are the only fruit we add to our chicken salad and how we did it at the restaurant, but they can be substituted with chopped strawberries, apples, dried cranberries or dried cherries.
Pecans can be substituted with walnuts or almonds or omitted completely.
Red onion can be substituted with green onions.
You can get creative with the flavors by adding different fresh or dried herbs.
Sugar substitute can be used in place of sugar.
Regular or light mayonnaise works in this dish.

Storage

Store chicken salad in the refrigerator in an air tight container up to 5 days.
It is not recommended to freeze and thaw chicken salad.
If the chicken salad has been left out at room temperature for more than two hours, discard it to avoid the risk of food poisoning.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should I serve chicken salad at an outdoor event?

It’s best if the chicken salad can be served inside a pre-chilled dish. The FDA guidelines state that chicken salad should not sit at room temperature for longer than two hours. If the temperature is above 90°F, the chicken salad should be refrigerated after only one hour.

What if I don’t like celery?

You can substitute celery with 1-2 teaspoons celery seed or simply omit it.

I’m allergic to pecans. Do they have to be included?

No, you can either substitute the pecans with a different nut or omit them completely.

Is Southern Chicken Salad gluten free?

Yes, my recipe does not contain any gluten containing ingredients?

Is this a good option for someone being mindful of their carbohydrate consumption?

Absolutely! As with any recipe, you can easily adjust the type and/or amount of a few of the ingredients to make it more carbohydrate friendly. One cup of this Southern Style Chicken Salad has 10 grams of carbohydrates.

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