This 10-minute Rotisserie Chicken Salad recipe is a basic recipe customizable to your needs—a delicious lunch for one, two, or a crowd.
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Most people think of chicken salad as a summer salad, but we eat it year-round for light meals. It is a great way to use that leftover chicken and other things you have around.
Basic chicken salad is chicken, mayonnaise, and celery for crunch. But that is very basic. I added some other common ingredients to the recipe but provided multiple options to make it your own.
By using low-fat mayonnaise, the calories will decrease from 255 to 132, and the fat will reduce from 25 to 10.3 grams of fat. This will make it a healthy chicken salad that fits a healthy diet like a low-calorie, low-fat diet, and low-carb keto diet. It is already gluten-free.
This easy chicken salad recipe only takes a little work and a few ingredients—follow the easy step-by-step photo instructions for a quick and delicious meal.
Serve in a wrap, sandwich, on lettuce, or eat it with crackers.
For a more eloquent chicken salad, see Waldorf Chicken Salad. And other picnic or brunch recipes like Caprese Pasta Salad, Broccoli Salad, Spinach Salad, Broccoli Slaw, and Chipotle Chicken Salad.
Inspired by Martha Stewart's Classic Chicken Salad with a few minor changes
🐓Ingredients
- Chicken—rotisserie or other precooked chicken
- Mayonnaise—or Miracle Whip—may be low-fat
- Vegetables—celery, red onion, or other onion like green onions
- Pantry ingredients—lemon juice, dry parsley, Dijon mustard, salt, black pepper
- Optional ingredients
- Nuts—Almonds. Pecans, Walnuts, Cashews.
- Spices—Garlic, Paprika, Curry Powder, Cayenne Pepper
- Fruits—Grapes, Raisins, Craisins, Apples
- Other—Bell Peppers, Olives, Hard Boiled Eggs, Pickles, Pickled Jalapenos
👨🍳How to Make Rotisserie Chicken Salad
- Dice celery and red onion and combine rotisserie or precooked chicken, mayo, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and spices.
- Mix well. Refrigerate for an hour to let the flavors combine if you have time. Then serve in a wrap, sandwich, or with crackers.
✔️Tips
- The most common way to get your chicken is leftover rotisserie chicken. But any leftover or precooked chicken will work.
- Most chicken salad is made with a ratio of 2 cups of chicken to ½ cup of mayonnaise. But there is some room for personal preference. So adjust the volume of mayo to the dryness of the salad you like.
- You can use Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise. It can be low-fat or regular.
- Some people will use plain Greek yogurt to replace the mayonnaise, but I like mayonnaise.
- The lemon juice can be fresh if you have it. A medium lemon will have about 2 tablespoons of juice.
- Almost all chicken salad has some onion. General diced green or red onion is usually used. I include mustard and parsley, also.
↕️How to make this a "for two" or "family size" recipe
This is a very easy recipe to decrease or increase in size.
The full recipe makes 4 servings. Perfect for our "for two" household for two meals. But you can easily adjust it to make it for one or two servings. Also, easy to increase to as many servings as you want.
- Use the recipe card and adjust the number of servings needed.
- Use the amount of ingredients in the ingredient list, not the instructions—those do not adjust.
❓FAQs
A cup of cubed rotisserie chicken weighs about 4-5 oz. You can use any precooked chicken or even drained canned chicken.
If you don't have some precooked or rotisserie chicken, you can cook a medium-sized skinless boneless chicken breast will get you about 1 ½ to 2 cups. Cook a raw chicken breast in the oven for about 30 minutes to bake to 165°.
❄️Storage and Safety
Chicken salad should be sealed in an airtight container and will last refrigerated for 4 days. The mayo and the vegetables do not freeze well, so freezing is not recommended.
A food safety note. Like all foods, discard if left at room temperature for 2 hours or more. If using several days old chicken, that time counts when talking maximum time until discarding.
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
Dice 1 stalk of celery and half a small red onion.
Combine the celery and onion with 2 cups diced or shredded chicken, ½ cup mayo, ½ teaspoon parsley, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Add other options if desired.
Mix well. If you have time, refrigerate it for at least an hour to allow the flavors to come together. Then serve on a sandwich, salad, crackers, or wrap.
📖 Recipe
Rotisserie Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cup chicken - cooked, cubed or shredded
- ½ cup mayonnaise—low-fat preferred - or Miracle Whip
- ½ cup diced celery - about one medium rib
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ red onion - small diced
- ½ teaspoon parsley dry
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
Optional ingredients
- Nuts - Almonds. Pecans, Walnuts, Cashews.
- Spices - Garlic, Paprika, Curry Powder, Cayenne Pepper
- Fruits - Grapes, Raisins, Craisins, Apples
- Other - Bell Peppers, Olives, Eggs, Pickles, Pickled Jalapenos
Instructions
- Dice 1 stalk of celery and half a small red onion.
- Combine the celery and onion with 2 cups diced or shredded chicken, ½ cup mayo, ½ teaspoon parsley, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Add other options if desired.
- Mix well. If you have time, refrigerate it for at least an hour to allow the flavors to come together. Then serve on a sandwich, salad, crackers, or wrap.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips:
- The general ratio is 2 cups of diced or shredded chicken per ½ cup of dressing. You can vary that for your taste.
- A cup of shredded or cubed chicken is 4-5 oz. of meat.
- Adjust the ingredients for the amount of chicken you have.
- One medium chicken breast will make about 1 ½ to 2 cups of diced chicken.
- A medium celery rib will make about ½ cup of chopped celery.
- One lemon will yield about 2 tablespoons of juice.
- Regular or low-fat versions of mayonnaise or Miracle Whip will be fine.
- By using low-fat mayonnaise, the calories will decrease from 255 to 132 and the fat from 25 to 10.3 grams. The calculated nutrition uses low-fat.
- Add-ins:
-Nuts: Almonds. Pecans, Walnuts, Cashews. (generally ¼ cup)
-Spices: Garlic, Paprika, Curry Powder, Cayenne Pepper (Go light with this)
-Fruits: Grapes, Raisins, Craisins, Apples (about ¼ cup to start)
-Other: Bell Peppers, Olives, Eggs, Pickles, Pickled Jalapenos - Chicken salad will last refrigerated for 4 days if sealed well. The mayo and the vegetables do not freeze well so freezing is not recommended.
- A food safety note. Like all foods, if left at room temperature for 2 hours or more, discard it. Also, since this is made with leftover chicken, the 4 days that it is good refrigerated start with the cooking of the chicken, NOT the making of the chicken salad.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editor's Note: Originally Published December 16, 2012. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Gail
How do you poach the chicken?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Gail,
Place a couple of chicken breasts in hot water in a medium sauce pan. Cover with hot water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease to simmer and cover. Cook to 165° internal temperature—about 20 minutes but varies with size and thickness. Can be speeded up by cutting the chicken into a couple of large pieces.
Dan
Kiersten Kees
You ought to be a part of a contest for one of the highest quality websites online. I will recommend this blog!
Lissa
How much canned chicken would i need for 16 people
DrDan
Hi Lissa,
Welcome to the blog. Cooked diced chicken does not have an exact conversion to weight and then they dump "packing water" in also.
Having said that 1/2 cup of diced chicken should weigh 4-5 oz. There are variables with hydration and size of the dice. A half cup is a large serving. I would make 1/3 to 1/2 cup of chicken per person. Better a little too much than not enough.
Our local Sams Club sells cut up rotisserie chickens from the day before that I usually use for this and my cleaning lady gets the local Meijers (think kind of a Walmart) will strip the meat off the bone for free. I also keep a few cans (12 oz each I think) in the pantry. It yields about 8 oz which is really "cooking for two" size.
Dan
Money Baby
A lot
Chris
This is how I like mine. I don't enjoy the ones that have grapes, apple, and/or nuts in them. I guess that's just because this is how my mom made it, without all the frills.