Chicken Salad: Going home to Easton, Pennsylvania, for the weekend for chicken salad is a treasured memory. Mom would have a linen tablecloth and cloth napkins set out, with a candelabra in the center of the table. She treated lunch like she was at Hess Department Store for lunch, all nice china and silverware. The “crowning glory” was her chicken salad. Hess Department Store is no longer around, but when I make this salad, it brings back memories of dining at their fine, elegant restaurant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Chicken salad, to many people, is that leftover chicken that looks different and tastes different than the baked chicken you had the night before. Mom treated her chicken salad as the main course at lunch, a delicacy that she scooped into lettuce leaves, dolloped on fancy crackers or spread on a great Italian bread. Whichever way she prepared it, it was the centerpiece of the meal. And it tasted heavenly.
CHICKEN SALAD RECIPE
Here is the recipe for mom’s chicken salad:
3 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
3 stalks celery chopped in tiny little squares
3 hard boiled eggs, cut into pieces
3 sweet pickles, chopped (or relish from jar)
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper to your taste
Mayonnaise
Boil the chicken until tender and flakes apart with fork. Put chicken in colander and run cold water over it to stop the cooking process. Chop celery, boiled eggs and sweet pickles, and mix with mayonnaise (about 2 tablespoons to begin with, and add more if needed). After the chicken has cooled so you can handle it, cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Add salt to chicken and then add other ingredients. If not moist enough, add more mayo. Refrigerate overnight. (If the chicken salad is too thick when I go to serve it the next day, I add a little milk or water to loosen the mayo mixture.)
CRACKER BARREL CHICKEN SALAD CLONE OR COPY
I haven’t been able to find a copy of the real Cracker Barrel Chicken Salad recipe, but the easy recipe below is not too far off. I hope you enjoy it.
3 large chicken breasts
About 3 celery stalks (I have found that sliced celery looks to be the way they have their celery.)
Chicken broth
Dill pickle relish
1 small onion (diced)
2 tablespoons Mayonnaise of your choice, but I like Kraft
½ cup fat-free sour cream
Boil the chicken, celery and the can of chicken broth until the chicken is tender and you can flake it with a fork. After chicken is done, place all in colander and run cold water over it.
Add the relish, diced onion, mayonnaise, and sour cream. I always make extra dressing (the mayonnaise, source cream, relish and diced onion) to serve on the side. I always refrigerate the completed chicken salad overnight so the flavors blend together. When I serve it, I put the chicken salad on a lettuce leaf, with cheese, sliced tomato and egg on the side. When taken out of the refrigerator, if the salad dressing is too thick, I add a little water or milk and stir it around. This makes it nice and gooey. This isn’t identical to the Cracker Barrel recipe, I don’t know of anyone who has that recipe, but this recipe tastes real good to me and my family.
Enjoy!!!