Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad is boiled chicken or turkey with celery or cabbage, cucumber pickles, egg yolks, and dressing of salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, oil, and vinegar.

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

  1. Chop the white and dark meat of the cold boiled chicken or turkey.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with the chopped celery or cabbage and cucumber pickles.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, rub the yolks of two hard boiled eggs to a fine powder.

  2. Add salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar to the egg yolks and mix them with the seasonings.

  3. Stir in the salad oil and vinegar until combined.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the chicken mixture and stir well.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Celery + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,745 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled chicken or turkey
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Rubbed to a powder and blended into the dressing, giving it body and a rich, creamy texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
White sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the dressing's flavour.
Celery or cabbage
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft meat and dressing.

The step that matters

Rubbing the egg yolks to a fine powder. Yolks that stay in lumps will not blend smoothly into the oil and vinegar, leaving a grainy, uneven dressing. Breaking them down fully lets them emulsify with the oil and disperse evenly through the salad.

Swap the celery

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, cucumber, egg, pepper, mustard, sugar, 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