Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A salad of chopped chicken, celery, and egg yolk dressing, garnished with egg white rings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Salad

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped chicken and celery.

  2. In another bowl, beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth.

Make and combine

  1. Add mustard, salt, melted butter or oil, and vinegar to the egg yolks; mix well.

  2. Pour the dressing over the chicken and celery; mix to combine.

Serve

  1. Garnish the salad with the rings of egg whites around the dish.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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

Chicken
Forms the bulk of the salad, providing the main protein and texture.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the mustard and fat to form a smooth, creamy dressing.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsified dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg yolks smooth before adding the other dressing ingredients. Yolks beaten until smooth can absorb the melted butter or oil and vinegar evenly, forming a stable emulsion. Lumpy yolks or fat added too fast can split the dressing into a greasy, separated texture.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, mustard, 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.

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