Southern Chicken Salad
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!
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!
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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.
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
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.
You can substitute celery with 1-2 teaspoons celery seed or simply omit it.
No, you can either substitute the pecans with a different nut or omit them completely.
Yes, my recipe does not contain any gluten containing ingredients?
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.
More Recipes Like This
Southern Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb cooked chicken
- 1/2 cup finely diced celery
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 2 tbsp finely diced red onion
- 1 tbsp dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp sweet relish
- 1/4 tsp sugar
- 1 1/4 cups mayonnaise
- 1 cup quartered grapes
Instructions
- 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.
Video
Nutrition
About Laura
Taught by some of the best, cooking and entertaining has always been my favorite hobby. Food is my love language! The conception of Dinner in 321 came from my family talks that sharing our dinners would help others learn new skills, tasty recipes, and make cooking fun! Read more…
I could eat this every day. It’s so good with all of the flavors and textures. It’s definitely a keeper recipe.
Aww!! It makes my heart so happy that you like it so much too!! 🙂
I always love trying new chicken salad recipes — I’ve really never met one I didn’t like! And yours is no exception, loved the addition of relish in it. I usually add relish to my tuna salad, but have never thought about adding to chicken salad.
Thank you so much!! 🙂 I’m so happy you liked it!
Made this for lunch and ate it with crackers. Love love love!
Thank you so much!! 🙂 I’m so happy you liked it!
l haven’t tried yet, just got it’s. I wanted to say thank you very much. I have a broken arm right, but will try soon.
thanks
I hope you feel better soon and that you love it when you’re able to make it 🙂
can I use mandarin oranges instead of grapes?
Yes, you can. Just drain them first 🙂
You mentioned you use chicken that was boiled in salt water. What ratio of water to salt do you use per pound? Thank you!
It’s 1/2-1 tablespoon salt per quart of water.
best ever my family loves this chicken salad. Thank you for sharing all the wonderful recipes.
That’s awesome! Thank you so much!! 🙂 I’m so happy you liked it!
This is the best chicken salad recipe ever! I’m constantly making this and snacking on it all week with crackers. ❤️it!!
Thank you so much!! I’m so happy it is a hit and on repeat! 🙂
This was Sooo good will use this recipe again @ again
Thank you so much!! 🙂 I’m so happy it was a hit!
Do you have to use onion
No, you can omit it 🙂
What is your favorite brand of Mayo to use? Thanks!
I prefer Duke’s mayo, but I’ll use Hellman’s too. 🙂
When you live in the South you are
“not allowed” to use any other mayo except for Dukes.