Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A salad of cooked white chicken and celery dressed with a mixture of eggs, mustard, oil, sugar, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the chicken and celery

  1. Boil the chicken whole.

  2. Separate and use only the white meat.

  3. Cut the chicken and celery into small pieces, but do not chop.

  4. Mix the chicken and celery together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks of the hard boiled eggs to a fine powder.

  2. Add salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar to the yolks.

  3. Mix in the oil.

  4. Beat the raw egg until frothy.

  5. Combine the raw egg with the dressing.

  6. Add the vinegar. Mix thoroughly.

Combine and serve

  1. Sprinkle a little salt over the chicken and celery mixture.

  2. Pour the dressing over the mixture.

  3. Mix gently with a fork.

  4. Garnish with celery tips.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Forms the bulk and meaty texture of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild crunch against the soft chicken.
Hard boiled eggs
Yolks are mashed into the dressing, giving it body and richness.
Raw egg
Beaten and combined with the dressing, it thickens and emulsifies it.
Salad oil or melted butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and helps form a smooth dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Combine the raw egg with the dressing. Raw egg thickens a dressing only when it is beaten until frothy and blended in gradually, since the proteins set and emulsify the oil. Adding it unbeaten or all at once can leave the dressing thin or lumpy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, pepper, egg, mustard, butter, sugar. 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