Name: Chicken Salad
Ingredients: 2¼ cups cooked white meat chicken, diced; 1½ cups mayonnaise; 1½ cups celery, chopped; 1½ cups shelled almonds; 1½ cups Malaga grapes, peeled and seeded; hearts of lettuce for serving

Why it works: Almond and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

2¼ cups cooked white meat chicken, diced
1½ cups mayonnaise
1½ cups celery, chopped
1½ cups shelled almonds
1½ cups Malaga grapes, peeled and seeded
hearts of lettuce for serving

Directions

Make the salad

In a large bowl, combine the diced chicken, mayonnaise, chopped celery, shelled almonds, and peeled, seeded grapes. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Serve

Serve the chicken salad on hearts of lettuce.

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.

Almond + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together210 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Almond + grapetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,435 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
Celery + almondtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together485 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Grape + lettucetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together349 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken: Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Mayonnaise: Adds moisture and richness, binding the salad together with fat.
Celery: Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch.
Shelled almonds: Add crunch and a toasty, nutty flavour.
Malaga grapes: Add sweetness and juiciness that balance the rich mayonnaise.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, chicken, celery, almond, lettuce):

Avocadofits better
Limefits better
Coconutfits better
Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, chicken, celery, almond, lettuce. 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.