Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A chilled salad of shredded chicken, apple, celery, walnuts, grapes, seasoned with paprika, salt, olive oil, malt vinegar, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Salad

Why it works: Apple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the chicken until very tender, then cut up all the meat.

  2. Remove the skin and stones from the grapes and cut the apple into small pieces.

  3. Chop the celery and walnuts.

Mix and rest

  1. Mix all ingredients together and season with paprika, coarse sea salt, olive oil, and malt vinegar.

  2. Cover the bowl and let it stand for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, mix in some mayonnaise.

  2. Mix the mayonnaise with sour cream or whipped cream to soften it.

  3. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise over the top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Walnut + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Walnut + grapetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Chicken + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,888 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid hexyl ester (sweet, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewing chicken
Provides the main body of the salad; slow cooking makes the meat tender enough to cut and mix.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad into a creamy texture.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, slightly bitter note.
Grapes
Add juicy sweetness and a pop of texture.
Tart apple
Adds acidity and crisp texture that balances the richness of the mayonnaise.

The step that matters

Standing time after mixing. Letting the salad rest lets the flavours of the seasonings, vinegar and fruit spread through the chicken. Mayonnaise is added just before serving so the salad stays creamy rather than becoming loose or watery.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, walnut, grape, olive, malt, vinegar):

  1. Cherryfits better
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, walnut, grape, olive, malt, 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.

More chicken salad recipes

Dressing 31Sandwich 8with Mayonnaise 6Cream Cheese 5Moulded 5Chinese 4 See all 638 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes