It’s bold to claim that this is the Best 4 ingredient Chicken Salad Sandwich recipe*. But, in my opinion, it is. This deli style chicken salad sandwich is uncomplicated, only having a few ingredients. It is that simplicity that really makes it so great. Making chicken salad with minimal ingredients is all well and good, but if it doesn’t taste great, it’s all pointless. Luckily, this sandwich does tick all the taste boxes. It has a little bite, a pop of sweetness, a touch of celery-ness, and of course, it’s a little creamy. I think you’ll love this Chicken Salad Sandwich, and I am so excited to share it with you.
*four ingredients excluding mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and bread.
Chicken Salad Vegetables
The real secret to making this chicken salad is the garnish that goes in the chicken salad mix. I’ve had chicken salad with various ingredients like avocado, grapes, apple, bacon, pickles, and so on. And honestly, I’ve loved them all. However, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, I like simple, uncomplicated food. So, for me, a 4-ingredient chicken salad is best. I don’t count the mayo, salt or pepper as ingredinets as they are more seasonings. The best chicken salad has onion for sharpness, carrot for sweetness, and celery for celery-ness. (If you can think of a better way to describe the flavour of celery, please tell me in the comments below.) Of course, you can make a basic chkcen salad no celery if you’d prefer. You can leave any ingredient out, but I think the combination of all the ingredients is what makes this loaded chicken salad so good. The key is to cut the vegetables into the smallest pieces you can. You can grate the vegetables on a cheese grater if you’d like, as I demonstrated in my Deviled Egg Salad Sandwich post. In total, you need three tablespoons of onion and two tablespoons of both carrot and celery.
Chicken For Chicken Salad
I think that the best chicken salad sandwiches are those that are made with leftover whole roasted chicken. Chickens that are roasted whole have more flavour and moisture than boneless, skinless chicken breast. So, I took the breast off a roasted chicken and cut it up with the skin. You can leave the skin out if you’d prefer, but it does add a lot of flavour. As with the vegetables, cut the chicken as small as you can. You’ll need one cup of cut chicken in total.
Optional Chicken Salad Ingredients
In my opinion, the best cheese for chicken salad, is no cheese at all. But, if you really want cheese on chicken salad sandwich, cheddar, swiss, or even pepper jack cheese are great options. Lot’s of people prefer an easy chickne salad recipe without celey, but you can add grapes or apples instead to provide that crunch. If you’re wondering what goes good with chicken salad sandwiches, I suggest some veggie sticks or even a bag a potato chips. Either dill pickle, salt and vinegar or plain would be best.
How to make the Best Chicken Salad Recipe
Put the chicken and vegetables in a medium mixing bowl. Add three tablespoons of mayonnaise, a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, and a pinch of black pepper. Mix the chicken salad, taste it and season with a little more salt and pepper as needed. The finished mixture should be creamy but not wet.
Best Bread For Chicken Salad Sandwiches
When it comes to choosing the right bread for your chicken salad, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, you want the bread to be soft. If the bread is too hard, when you bite into it, the chicken salad will come out the other side. Second, you want bread that doesn’t have too strong a flavour. Chicken salad has a mild flavour so pairing it with a strong flavoured bread like Rye would be to much. I also wouldn’t serve chkcne salad on a bagel, just due to how dense the bagle is, and the pesky hole in the middle. All your filling will leak out the middle and the back when you bite in. Soft white or whole wheat bread, or even a crossiant are in my opinion, the best bread for chicken salad sandwiches.
Assembling The Sandwiches
This amount of chicken salad should yield between two and four sandwiches depending on how much you load them up. To make the sandwiches lay out your bread and butter it making sure to push the butter right to the edge of the bread all the way around. Top the buttered bread with a quarter to a half cup of the chicken salad mixture. Top with the second slice of buttered bread, slice and serve. If you’d like, you can also add some lettuce to the sandwich.
Wrap-Up
For me, the best chicken salad sandwich is simple, and I think this recipe hammers that point home. Of course, you can take this recipe, change it and make it your own. However, I recommend you try it as written once because I think you’ll be amazed at just how good something with so few ingredients can truly be. Enjoy!
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Ingredients
- 1 cup chicken, cooked and diced
- 3 tbsp onion
- 2 tbsp celery
- 2 tbsp carrot
- 3 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- pinch black pepper
- 4 tbsp softened butter
Instructions
- Mince or grate the onion, carrot and celery and add them to a medium mixing bowl.
- Add the diced chicken, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Mix well. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
- Spread the butter out onto eight slices of bread. Top four slices of bread with between a quarter and a half cup of the chicken salad. Top with the other pieces of bread, cut in half and serve.
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