Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Salad

A salad of boiled chicken, diced celery, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Salad

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the chicken until tender, then let it cool.

  2. Cut the chicken meat into small dice.

  3. Chop the celery to match the amount of chicken.

  4. In a bowl, mix the chicken and celery.

Dress and rest

  1. Add oil, vinegar, mustard, and salt; stir well.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 1-2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix in mayonnaise, reserving some to top the salad.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Chicken
Provides the main protein and the bulk of the salad.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild vegetal flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and moisture that bind the salad and give it a creamy texture.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and softens the chicken and celery.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for 1-2 hours. Resting lets the vinegar and seasonings soak into the chicken and celery, so the flavor spreads evenly. Skipping the rest leaves the salad tasting sharp on the surface and flat inside.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, vinegar, mustard, sauce, lettuce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, vinegar, mustard, sauce, lettuce. 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