mom’s chicken salad

I think I’ve mentioned it before that I’m not a big fan of the veggie. However, there’s a few salads I’ll eat. My mom’s chicken salad hapens to be one of them. Although I love the chicken salad on a sandwich, my mom usually cooks up some elbow pasta for an awesome macaroni chicken salad. I wanted to make lunch for this week and had some extra chicken laying around, so ta da…chicken salad!

Ingredients: (for a good week long supply)

• 3 boneless/skinless chicken breasts (i ended up using 1 part chicken thigh bc it’s what i had around)
• 3 tbsp. miracle whip
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise (the mayo and miracle whip can be replaced with the light or fat free stuff)
• 1/4 cup mini diced carrots
• 1 8oz can of pineapple chunks (drain the juice as much as possible)
• 2 tsp. sweet relish
• 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
• salt & pepper to taste

Let’s start off with boiling the chicken. I let it cook until it was not pink or red at all in the middle, continuously checking. While that cooks, go ahead and dice up your carrots and cut your pineapple chunks into thin slices. Add the carrots, pineapple, and sweet relish into a large mixing bowl.

Once the chicken is done boiling, remove from boiling water and let the chicken cool. Don’t go burning your fingers off trying to shred the chicken. I did this by hand, bc it brings back that childhood feeling of helping my mom in the kitchen with this. You could always chop it up with a knife, but what fun is that?

I had way more chicken than that, but if I added it all, I wouldn’t have the cute photo op (heh). Now, add the remaining ingredients…the mayo, miracle whip, & sugar. Mix it all up nice and great. Add salt & pepper to taste. I believe I used about 1.5 tsp of salt and about .5 tsp of pepper. If you feel you’d like more mayo or miracle whip, go ahead and add it. I won’t tell. *wink wink*

This is great on a sandwich, great alone, and fantastic with elbow pasta. Here’s to lunch for a week!

–chelle (i’m on a roll. 2 in a week. woo!)