Skip to main content
Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad made with shredded chicken, olive oil, French mustard, vinegar, egg yolks, cayenne pepper, celery, and sea salt.

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

Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

  1. Cook the fowl until tender, then cool and shred the meat.

Make and combine

  1. In a bowl, mix olive oil, French mustard, vinegar, egg yolks, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add shredded chicken and chopped celery to the dressing.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Serve immediately after mixing.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Forms the base of the dressing, adding richness and moisture to the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar, helping the dressing hold together and become creamy.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil and yolks.
Fowl
Provides the main body of the salad as shredded, tender meat.

The step that matters

Shred the chicken after it is fully tender and cooled. If the fowl is undercooked, the meat stays tough and clings to the bones; if it is still hot, it can make the dressing separate and turn greasy. Fully cooking and cooling the meat keeps the texture tender and the emulsion stable.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, mustard, vinegar, egg, 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.

More chicken salad recipes

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

You might also like

Salad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipesBoiled Salad DressingBoiled Salad Dressing67 recipes