Summer Chicken Salad with Red Grapes
Summer Chicken Salad with Red Grapes
This is a really tasty and versatile salad that's lightly sweetened by sweet onions and seedless grapes. It's juicy and refreshing and just speaks of summer to me. I like to eat it with Triscuit Crackers best and my husband loves to make wraps out of it with soft tortillas. I had it for lunch on a kaiser roll and it was delicious!
At our last Maryhill Winery concert picnic I brought some of this chicken salad and we shared it with everyone in our group very simply in little paper cups with plastic forks. This is awesome summer picnic food!
So to get this sweet chicken salad started, poach the chicken. Do this well ahead of time so you can go do something else while the chicken cools in the poaching liquid, then come back and finish the salad later or even the next day.
Place the boneless chicken breasts into a deep skillet with chicken stock so they are covered to a depth of one inch. Add 2 large sprigs of fresh dill and bring to a gentle simmer. Continue to cook on medium low heat for about 15 minutes until the breasts reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Remove the skillet from the heat and let it cool completely, then shred the chicken into bite size pieces. I like to pour the stock off through a fine strainer into a plastic food container to use for another dish. It's really good!
The next thing to do is to get the dressing started and chop up the rest of the salad ingredients.
I have this beautiful fresh Mexican tarragon and mint growing in pots in my backyard. It makes an amazing difference in this dish but you can used dried if that's what you have on hand. Just remember that dried herbs are much more concentrated so use less. I would probably use about half the amount of herbs dried as I do using the fresh herbs in this recipe.
Happy Summer Days!
~Melisa
Summer Chicken Salad with Red Grapes
Ingredients
For the Salad
5 medium size boneless chicken breasts poached in chicken stock with fresh dill 1/4 cup minced sweet Walla Walla or Vidalia onion
1/3 cup finely sliced scallions 4 stalks finely chopped celery
2 cups seedless red grapes cut in half
For the Dressing
1 cup light mayo 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 Tablespoon sugar 2 Tablespoons minced fresh Tarragon 2 Tablespoons minced fresh Mint Juice of half a lime
salt & pepper to taste
Method
Place the boneless chicken breasts into a deep skillet with chicken stock so they are covered to a depth of one inch. Add 2 large sprigs of fresh dill and bring to a gentle simmer then continue to cook on medium low heat for about 15 minutes until the breasts reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Remove the skillet from the heat and let cool completely, then shred the chicken into bite size pieces. Strain and reserve the stock for another use if you like. Discard the sprigs of dill.
In a large bowl, mix together the light mayo, Dijon mustard, sugar, tarragon, mint and lime juice then fold in the celery, sweet onion, scallions and grape halves. Add the shredded chicken to the bowl and mix well then season with the salt and lots of pepper to your taste.
