Skip to main content
Salad

Chicken Salad

A salad made with chopped cooked chicken, celery, eggs, butter, oil, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 cooked chickens and celery finely.

  2. Juice the lemons and set aside.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped egg whites and mashed yolks.

  2. Add melted butter, sweet oil, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and cream to the egg mixture. Mix well, then add the chopped celery and chicken.

  3. Moisten the mixture with vinegar to your desired consistency.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  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

Cooked chickens
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture that contrasts with the soft chicken and eggs.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body, with the yolks giving a creamy base.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dressing.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, coating texture.

The step that matters

Moisten with vinegar gradually. Vinegar is acidic and thins the dressing quickly, so adding it a little at a time lets you reach the desired consistency without making the salad watery or sharp.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, lemon, egg, butter, pepper, 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

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