Name: Chicken Rice Salad
Ingredients: ½ cup (120 ml ) mayonnaise; ¼ cup (120 ml) plain yoghurt; ½ cup (120 g) walnuts , chopped; ½ cup (120 ml) condensed cream of mushroom soup; 3 hard boiled eggs , peeled and chopped; 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 1 ½ teaspoon salt or less, to taste; 1 teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon dry mustard; 3 cups (700 g ) cooked rice , cooled; 2 cups (480 g) cooked chicken , cooled and chopped; ¼ cup (60 g) grated carrot; 2 tablespoons green onion , chopped; ½ cup (120 g) celery , chopped

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together865 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Provides creamy body and fat that coats the rice, chicken and vegetables.
Plain yoghurt: Adds tang and moisture, loosening the dressing and balancing the richness.
Cooked rice: Forms the bulk of the salad and soaks up some of the dressing as it chills.
Cooked chicken: Supplies the main protein and savoury body of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add soft, creamy texture and extra richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Refrigerate for at least half an hour. Chilling lets the dressing settle into the rice and chicken and firms the mixture, so the flavours blend and the salad holds together when served.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, cream, mushroom, egg, parsley, lemon, pepper):

Spinachfits better
Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, cream, mushroom, egg, parsley, lemon, pepper. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Walnut	1 walnut half (4g)	26
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Mushroom	1/2 cup sliced (35g)	15
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Soup	not in our table	0

Chicken Rice Salad