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Chicken Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from boiled chicken, eggs, mustard, butter, vinegar, salt, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the chicken and let it cool.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs, mustard, salt, red pepper, and butter together until well combined.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and heat over boiling water until thickened to a cream-like consistency.

  3. Chill the dressing completely before using.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Chicken + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set over heat, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the emulsified dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar and heat over boiling water until thickened to a cream-like consistency. Egg proteins set gently as they warm; too much heat or too long over the water can scramble the eggs and curdle the dressing, so heat slowly and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, pepper, butter, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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