chicken
salad
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2c cooked chicken
1 stalk of celery
2 hard boiled eggs - just whites
1/4 of a chicken bouillon cube
3-4tbsp mayo
dash of paprika
dash of white wine vinegar
AN kosher salt
AN freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco (optional)
ingredients
yield: 3-4 servings
cook time: 30 minutes
course: lunch, appetizer
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traditionally flavored chicken salad with a spreadable, dip-like texture
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1. In a small saucepan, cover your eggs with cool water. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cover the pot with a lid, remove from the heat, and let sit for 10 minutes. When done, transfer the eggs to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Meanwhile, roughly chop your celery.
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2. Add the celery, egg whites, and bouillon to a food processor. Pulse until finely minced.
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3. If your food processor is small, do this step in batches. Add your chicken to the bowl of the food processor and pulse until consistently ground, adding 2 tablespoons of mayo to the bowl a little at a time. You want the texture to be finely ground or moldy coarse - not paste-like.
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4. Transfer the chicken mixture to a bowl and add the white wine vinegar and remaining mayo. Season carefully to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika.
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5. Serve with crackers or as a sandwich with a few dashes of Tabasco hot sauce.
process
If you’re from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, or the surrounding area, then you know about Calvin’s chicken salad. Living in Colorado — especially during the summer — I think about it almost every day. So, I created this recipe with the help of my grandmother, my great-aunts, and a lot of copycat Calvin’s chicken salad recipes online. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to compare it to the real deal, but based on memory, I’d say I got pretty darn close.
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This recipe is super easy and definitely customizable to your taste and preferences. As a proper Southerner, Duke’s mayo is the only mayo in my eyes. However, the Colorado-inspired, health-conscious girl in me went with this avocado oil–based mayo instead. It really and truly is my second favorite, but to mimic the twang of Duke’s, I added white wine vinegar and paprika to this recipe. Do with that information what you will.
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Be careful with your seasoning. If you’re using the roast chicken from my recipe, then the salt content combined with the chicken bouillon is probably right where you want it. If you’re already using Duke’s mayo, you might want to go lighter on the vinegar and paprika. But as always, season with your heart — and taste as you go.
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I used a hand blender for the first batch of chicken salad I made and found you have to be very careful because it can easily turn the consistency into a paste. It got a little weird, but it’s certainly doable. Finely chop the celery and mix it in afterward, because you’ll likely have too hard of a time getting those celery pieces to the right size without overprocessing the chicken. If you have a food processor, definitely choose that over an immersion blender. Otherwise, just use a regular old blender — it may come out a bit coarser than it would with a food processor, so I recommend finely chopping your celery before adding it in, just to be kind to your blades. This immersion blender set has been the best kitchen purchase I've made in a while. Highly recommend.
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I’ll be having this chicken salad on crackers with a thin slice of cucumber, or as a sandwich with extra mayo and a whole bunch of pickles. I hope you’ll join me! Thank you so much for reading.​