Hot giardiniera gives this summery Spicy Chicken Salad a little heat and big flavor. It’s great on sandwiches or on its own. Recipe below.
What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word summer? Okay, then what’s the next thing? Well then, the thing after that? No, the thing after… oh, never mind. The correct answer is chicken salad.
When the warm weather hits and the great outdoors beckons, we tend to get lazy in the kitchen. We still want good food, but we want it to be fast and easy to make and satisfyingly filling but not too heavy. Like I said, chicken salad. To me, some leftover chicken and a little mayo is one of the great blank canvases of summer, ready to take on all kinds of flavors and personalities. So for all those reasons, this is the first of probably two or three chicken salads I’ll write about before the season ends.
At the heart of this lively version is hot giardiniera, an Italian mix of pickled vegetables. You’ll find it in most supermarkets and some specialty stores. The mix of vegetables varies, but it always includes peppers of some sort. Other usual suspects are carrots, celery, cauliflower or broccoli florets, olives and pearl onions. Giardiniera is generally available in both mild and hot versions, although hot is relative, and we’ve sampled various brands over the years with varying degrees of success. There aren’t many national brands to speak of, so you really just have to try what’s available where you are. If it turns out to be less spicy than you like, adding a pinch of cayenne pepper to your chicken salad will turn up the heat for you. Also, if you have a choice, go for giardiniera that uses a mix of vinegar and water for the liquid, not one that includes olive oil. You’ll get fewer calories and a brighter taste.
And if you can’t find store bought giardiniera anywhere, recipes for making your own abound online. That sounds rather labor intensive to me, but to someone else, it might be a fun project.
I’ve adapted this recipe from one I found in Bon Appetit. It was part of an article on what prominent chefs like to cook at home. For this recipe, it said the chef [Mary—I forget her last name or the restaurant, sorry] uses leftovers from a purchased roast chicken. Not sure where she buys her gargantuan birds, but I used both legs and thighs and one half of the breast of my purchased roast chicken to come up with the 2-1/2 cups of chicken needed. Not exactly what I’d call leftovers.
You can use this chicken salad to make sandwiches, as I’ve done here. Just as often, though, we eat it as is, with no bread. Some fresh fruit or a fruit salad makes a nice side. When we had this over the weekend, Marion made delicious all fruit smoothies as an accompaniment. We felt very healthy and smug eating this lunch. Yeah, it had mayonnaise in it, but not much. Shut up.
Spicy Chicken Salad with Hot Giardiniera
Serves 4
2 1/2 cups diced cooked chicken, skin removed [see Kitchen Notes]
1 cup drained hot giardiniera from jar, chopped
1/3 cup mayonnaise [or light mayo]
1/4 cup [packed] chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon giardiniera juices
The recipe calls for diced chicken. I cut it up into chunkier pieces than the standard dice, especially good if you don’t plan to make sandwiches with it. The giardiniera, conversely, comes chunkier than you need it for this dish—chop it into a rough dice. Combine chicken and next 4 ingredients in medium bowl. I didn’t have fresh basil, so I substituted chopped fresh parsley. Stir to blend well. TASTE FIRST, then season salad with salt and freshly ground pepper. The giardiniera probably adds plenty of salt, and its vinegary tang further lessens the need for additional salt. I added no salt to my latest batch. Serve.
Kitchen Notes
Chicken. I used a store bought chicken this time. Often I’ll roast extra chicken thighs when I’m making some for dinner to use later in this dish. You can also sauté thighs or breasts [or both] specifically for this dish and just chill them in the fridge.
Leftover giardiniera. First, it keeps for a really long time in the fridge. Chances are, you’ll like this salad well enough that you’ll use it up making more. One use we plan to make of it is topping a store bought frozen pizza some hectic night.
Also this week in Blue Kitchen
A moving reminder of what the recent holiday is really all about at WTF? Random food for thought.
Gongs and magic from Indonesia, via… Seattle? Give it a listen at What’s on the kitchen boombox?
Delicious! I ADORE chicken salad of almost every kind (except the nasty bland kind or the soupy kind, none of which you would make).
Thanks for sharing – can’t wait to see more chicken salad this summer.
I grill massive numbers of chicken breasts in the summer, so there’s always leftover on hand for chicken salad. I don’t know why it’s so addicting, but it is — I could eat some version of chicken salad every day.
This sandwich looks delicious, Terry – chicken salad is not that common here but I’ve had it a couple of times. I bet that homemade, like yours, would be 100% better.
It’s 8ºC here – a temperature I haven’t seen in São Paulo in many, many years – but I’d love to have that huge sandwich for lunch anyway. 🙂
Thanks for the recipe, Terry. I LOVE the idea of a spicy chicken salad and I love giardiniera. I open a jar for a snack like others would choose a bowl of popcorn. Now for those foodies who don’t have kitchens (and you know we’re out there), the roast beef chain Arby’s makes the best chicken salad sandwiches, with pecans, apple chunks and red grapes. Alas, it’s the other side of the coin, the opposite of hot.
Kirsten—I know what you mean about bad chicken salads. The original recipe for this called for more mayonnaise. Not only does doe overdoing the mayo add lots of fat, it turns the salad into a gloppy mess in my book. And thank you for your thoughtful comment on my Memorial Day WTF sidebar. You’re exactly right that we get caught up in the mundane details and small pleasures of our daily lives simply because we can.
Lydia—I bet the smokiness of grilled chicken would add a nice note to this recipe.
Patricia—In Brazil, that must seem cold [for the Celcius challenged, that’s about 46ºF]. Here in Chicago, it means maybe it’s time to put away the flip-flops and wear closed shoes—but probably not! Do give chicken salad a try, though—it’s a great use of leftover chicken, whatever the temperature. And if you team it up with a bowl of soup, it’s a satisfying cold weather meal.
Carolyn—Now you’ve got me thinking of other ways to use giardiniera. It really can add a lively punch, can’t it?
I also love chicken salad. Your version sounds delicious, since the giardiniera adds that much-needed tang to the creamy chicken. For those who do not like mayonnaise, how about using a mixture of mayo and light sour cream or substituting light sour cream altogether? I find that this alternative makes for a less cloying taste.
One of my favorite fake-cooking dinners is to buy a pre-roasted chicken, shred it and then make variously flavored chicken salads with it. My old standby is a harissa-flavored one, but this, with pickled peppers? I’ll have to give it a go! sounds awesome!
Terry – I absolutely adore chicken salad, and had forgotten all about it until I read your post! And you’re right about the mayo. Mayo with chicken and celery does NOT constitute chicken salad! You’ve inspired me (once again). I think I’ll make my curried chicken salad and do a post on it.
Terry, you’ve reminded me of a favorite chicken salad I have not had for years — with mayo (of course), curry, red grapes, and slivered almonds. Spicy, fragrant and sweet. Maybe you are right about summer….
See what I mean about leftover chicken and a little mayo being a perfect blank canvas for summer? Four comments and four different ideas! Verdantair, I’m always open to ways to reduce the fat found in mayo—this sounds like a good one. Ann, Toni and Christine, I’d love to see recipes posted from you.
And welcome, Christine! I only recently discovered her excellent blog My Plate or Yours? Check it out.
Chicken salad lends itself to so many more creative variations than tuna. This is a nice take on it. I like it dressed in mayo thinned with champagne vinegar and fresh tarragon snips.
Nice boombox picks. Saw the comment someone left re: your recommendation for Stop Making Sense. Couldn’t agree more. A hard-to-top live recording. “Nothing is better than that, is it…”
Delicious, chicken salad is such a classic and this is a great spin on it!
I failed the quiz, Terry. Will I get a chance to do better next week? 😉
My sister-in-law would love this salad. I’ll be sharing the recipe with her, so somebody in RI will be making your recipe.