Curried Apple Chicken Salad

I made this yummy salad for Christmas Eve dinner at my Grandma’s house this year. We always have a casual meal because our family is so big and everyone comes and goes at different times so a fancy sit-down dinner would just never work in that setting.

I adapted the recipe of Grass Routes Kitchen partly because I didn’t have all of her ingredients on-hand and I also felt that the boaster chickens already contain a lot of salt and other spices so I paired down some of the spices. The recipe comes together very quickly because of the store-bought chicken, but you could make your own if you were so inclined. Everybody seemed to like it even if they weren’t big fans of curry because that spice isn’t overpowering the other flavors.

Makes about 3.5 cups of chicken salad.

*Ingredients*

• 1 rotisserie chicken, breast and thighs deboned and shredded (About 1 cup of meat)
• 3-TB Mayonnaise
• The juice of half a lemon
• Zest of 1 medium lemon
• 1 Tbsp raw apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tsp sea salt (I used keltic sea salt)
• 1 Tsp pepper
• 2 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1/4 Tsp smoked paprika (You could use regular paprika and increase to 1/2 tsp)
• 3 Tbsp curry powder
• 3/4 cup diced apples (I used 1 large Honeycrisp)
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries (I used dried cherries from Traverse City, MI)
• 1/4 cup green onions, chopped (I used 5 small ones)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds (to garnish)

*Method*

Step 1: Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl except the almonds and mayonnaise.

Step 2: Stir in the mayonnaise, adjusting the amount so that the salad isn’t too wet. You don’t want to have it overpower the rest of the salad.

Step 3: Sprinkle the slivered almonds on top.

Chill and serve either on a bed of lettuce or as we did, in a bowl as a stand-alone salad.