Walnut Chicken Salad for Recipe Friday

Earlier this week I had some leftover chicken from a whole chicken that I cooked on my Traeger (it was similar to Rosemary Garlic Chicken, except I used olive oil instead of butter because of my whole dairy-free diet thing). I decided I wanted to make a chicken salad with it, and I was going to use a roasted red pepper vinaigrette salad dressing so that it was dairy free. But then I looked at the ingredients on the Miracle Whip (Light) that was in my fridge and realized that it has egg but no other dairy products.

The resulting recipe was sort of a conglomeration of various chicken salads that I have had before, but was also based in part on what I had available in the fridge and cupboard. As shown in the picture I ate it with Rye Krisp crackers, but you could also serve it on bread as a sandwich or pile it in the middle of a green salad.

Walnut Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped chicken
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
⅓ cup chopped walnuts*
⅛ – ¼ cup Miracle Whip (regular or light)
⅛ tsp poppy seeds
⅛ tsp rosemary
Salt to taste

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Serve with crackers, on slightly toasted bread, or on a green salad.

Note about the walnuts: I used honey glazed walnuts that I had in the cupboard. They are supposed to be salad toppers. They do add a little sweetness to the chicken salad, so if you only have plain walnuts you might need to add a small drizzle of honey to get the same sweetness.