Cooking With Clay: Chicken Salad

• SA Engages

July 24, 2019

Sometimes it’s fun to go all out on a meal, but for most college students this is just not possible. Whether it’s a lack of time or money, there are often a hundred reasons we feel limited in our dining options. While this may be true to a degree, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice flavor for finances. That’s why I am all about finding cheap, quick, and tasty alternatives to classic meals. With it being a hundred degrees in Lynchburg right now, something cool and light seems to be the right move. Enter the chicken salad sandwich.

As the saying goes, there is more than one way to skin a cat, but we aren’t skinning a cat we are making a sandwich and I am going to tell you how I make mine. Starting with the chicken; grab yourself a rotisserie chicken. Some use canned chicken – which is just wrong. It maybe saves you a dollar, its dry, and flavorless. Do yourself a favor and get the tasty chicken. Chop up the chicken to your preferred texture, I like to get some chunks in every bite so I cut about half the chicken to about the size of half a grape and the rest pretty fine to help with texture. Next, you’ll need your binding agent. I use plain Greek yogurt rather than mayonnaise, mainly because I don’t like mayonnaise and it makes for a lighter salad. Throw in two small packs of yogurt, you might have to adjust based on the size of the bird but this is a good starting point. Add a hefty pour of olive oil to help bring moisture and lighten the mixture up a bit. Mix it up and check consistency. I used to cry if my sandwich fell apart, and I’ve only grown up a little since those days so finding the consistency that will help it say together is deeply important to me. This is where you can mess around with adding more yogurt and oil to get to that perfect level of moisture. Salt and pepper liberally, chop and add a handful of fresh dill – I don’t want huge pieces of dill in there so I chop pretty finely. I buy these in the small containers and use the whole thing. Roughly chop up a quarter cup of almonds and add them along with a half cup of halved red grapes, this will give the salad a juicy sweet flavor with a nice crunch. Mix this all up and you have yourself a fun little chicken salad.

Now that we have the body, we need a vessel. I am a light rye guy but if that’s not your thing then use whatever bread you prefer, but don’t say I didn’t try to show you the way. This chicken salad and bread is definitely good enough to stand alone on bread, but adding some lettuce and red onion is a nice touch. If you want to impress you can quick pickle a red onion (add quarter cup sugar, a few teaspoons salt, half cup rice vinegar, three cloves of chopped garlic, in a large mason jar and shake to mix, slice onion in thin rings and add, top off with water and let that sit for about an hour. They’ll last a couple weeks in the fridge and are good on almost everything).

If you go all out and get all these ingredients this will cost right at $15 dollars and will make a week’s worth of lunches. It’s about $3 per sandwich and takes about 15 minutes to make, not to mention it’s a killer sandwich and great for hot weather days. Cooking affordably doesn’t have to sacrifice flavor, give this sandwich a try and you’ll see that I speak the truth.

 

INGREDIENTS

            1 Rotisserie Chicken

            2 Individual Greek Yogurt Packs

            1 Red Onion

            1 Package Fresh Dill

            Rye Bread or bread of choice

Olive Oil

            Salt

            Pepper

            Roasted Almonds

            Red Grapes

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