Curry Chicken Salad

In this Light Chicken Curry Salad recipe, half of the mayonnaise is replaced by Greek yogurt. Not only does it have fewer calories and more nutrition than the deli classic, it also has a wonderful tangy zip!

Replacing half the mayonnaise with yogurt, is an old Weight Watchers trick.  My recipe has evolved quite a bit over the years.  It was hard getting the measurements down for my ingredients because I usually mix everything together by eye, adding a bit of this and a bit of that, until it tastes right.

This is a great recipe for parties because you can make it in advance; in fact I recently served it as one of the dishes at a baby shower that I hosted. You can also serve it finely chopped on endive leaves as an hors d'oeuvre, (thanks to my friend Cynthia King for that suggestion!)

I have a confession to make about Paleo mayonnaise… I don’t do it. I have made my own from scratch before, and if you are interested in trying it, there is a great recipe for one at: The Clothes Make The Girl  Honestly, I’m not usually that motivated to make my own mayo, and for some reason it kind of skeeves me out, (I’m a little kooky about what skeeves me out and what doesn’t).   I haven’t found an organic mayonnaise brand that I like, so I usually just use Helmans. I figure that I eat mayonnaise so rarely, I’m not gonna worry about it. It’s part of my 20%.

Aaaaanyway, you should start by mixing your dressing ingredients together, then taste it and adjust according to your liking. Curry is a strong flavor, you might want to start with a teaspoon and taste it before adding more. I love this sweet curry powder from Penzeys Spices.

I’m lucky to live near a Penzeys store, I buy almost all of my spices from them. When I renovated our kitchen back in 2010, I had special drawers made that were deep enough to hold the Penzeys bottles. I’m not kidding, look!

If you are not lucky enough to live near a Penzys store, never fear! They have an online store: http://www.penzeys.com

For this recipe, I used the chicken from a 5 lb, store bought rotisserie chicken, sans it’s legs. I don’t know about you, but in my house, I can’t keep the drumsticks on a bird. My boys quickly rob their stems, and also avail themselves of the crispy skin.

Chop the chicken (light and dark meat), into small bite size pieces and place into a large mixing bowl. I had about 4 cups of chopped chicken.

Add the chopped apple, celery, cilantro, and the raisins and sunflower seeds to the bowl.

Add the curry dressing to the mixing bowl.

Stir the mixture and voila! You have chicken curry salad. This makes a big batch that I eat for lunch all week long, about 5 servings.

Try it as is, or serve it on a bed of salad greens.

Print Recipe

Curry Chicken Salad

Ingredients

• 4 cups chopped chicken
• ¾ cup celery about 2 stalks
• ¾ cup peeled seeded and chopped apple about 1/2 apple, I used honey crisp
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro
• ¼ cup golden raisins
• 2 tbs sunflower seeds or nut of your choice (optional)
• Curry Dressing:
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 3 Tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tsp honey optional
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp sweet curry powder
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper
• I recommend using organic ingredients when possible.

Instructions

• Whisk together the Curry Dressing Ingredients: mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, lemon juice, honey (optional), salt, pepper, and sweet curry powder.
• Chop the chicken (light and dark meat), into small bite size pieces and place in a large mixing bowl (about 4 cups).
• Add the chopped apple, celery, cilantro, and the raisins and sunflower seeds to the bowl.
• Add the curry dressing to the chicken mixture and stir. Serve as is, or over a bed of salad greens.