Leftover chicken can become a simple classic meal, Waldorf Chicken Salad. Think of it as chicken salad with grapes, nuts, and apple. Incredibly tasty, a simple cold meal for a hot summer day on the deck or a picnic.
Editor’s Note: Originally Published June 30, 2010. Last Updated May 30, 2018, with re-edited photos and text.
Waldorf salad was created at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1896 by Oscar Tschirky, the maître d’hôtel. The original contained only apples, celery, and mayonnaise. Chopped walnuts later became part of the dish.
Many variations are out there, but I wanted a chicken variation. I read at least 15 recipes and found only a few common themes. They all had an apple, celery, and nuts. Most had grapes some raisins. Mayo was present in most (not all). Some with plain yogurt and a few with sour cream. Onion of some type was present in at least half.
But the standout characteristic was the lack of any common ratios of various ingredients to each other. I will call the mayo/yogurt/sour cream wet. So the wet to chicken ratio ran from 2 tablespoons:4 cups all the way to 1 cup:2 cups a 16 fold variation. So I pick three middle of the road ones, an old CI and two from Recipezaar and combined.
My Rating:
High 4 to lower 5 depending on your needs at the time.
Recipe Notes for Waldorf Chicken Salad
What type of chicken?
Leftover rotisserie chicken should be fine. I had a lot of leftover chicken from cooking extra for a pizza and salad yesterday. You can cook the chicken any way you want but try to keep it moist. If you have a couple of raw skinless boneless chicken breasts, then trim and bake for about 35-40 minutes in a 350-degree oven to an internal temperature of 165.
Let’s Talk Apples
A lot seems to be made of what apple to use for this or that. I believe it is more a matter of individual taste. So probably the apples you have is fine. Here is a handy-dandy chart that is very well done by a hospital.
I think an apple that is firmer and tarter is the best choice here. So if you are buying apples just for this recipe, then some good choices are Cortland, Granny Smith, and Ida Red.
Serve very cold to bring out the crunchiness.
Other Picnic Dishes
a) Optional: roast 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) over medium heat in a small nonstick pan for 4-5 minutes to increase crunchiness.
b) Clean, core and chop 1 firm apple. Do not peel.
c) Clean and trim 1 stalk celery. Dice into relatively small pieces.
d) Clean and half 1 cup red seedless grapes.
e) 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion (about 1/2 medium size onion)
Combine apple, celery, and grapes in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and mix well to coat.
Add onion, nuts, and mayo. Salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper). Mix well, cover and refrigerate for at least one hour to allow all ingredients to cool and blend flavors.
Serve on a plate, in a wrap or a pita, on crackers, on a salad or in a sandwich.
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Waldorf Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups diced chicken
- 1 firm apple
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 cup grapes
- 1 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1/2 cup chipped nuts - walnuts or pecans
- 1/2 cup red onion - finely chopped about 1/2 medium size onion
- 1/2 cup low-fat mayo
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Clean, core and chop 1 firm apple. Do not peel.
- Clean and trim 1 stalk celery. Dice into relatively small pieces.
- Clean and half 1 cup red seedless grapes.
- 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion (about 1/2 medium size onion)
- Optional: roast 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) over medium heat in a small nonstick pan for 4-5 minutes to increase crunchiness.
- Combine apple, celery, and grapes in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice and mix well to coat.
- Add onion, nuts, and mayo. Salt and pepper to taste (about 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper). Mix well, cover and refrigerate for at least one hour to allow all ingredients to cool and blend flavors.
- Serve on a plate, in a wrap or a pita, on crackers, on a salad or in a sandwich.
Have a question or something not clear? Ask in the comments.
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Nutrition is for one serving. Number of servings is stated above and is my estimate of normal serving size for this recipe.
All nutritional information are estimates and may vary from your actual results. This is home cooking, and there are many variables. To taste ingredients such as salt will be my estimate of the average used.
If you like this recipe or find it useful, the pleasure of a nice 4 or 5 rating would be greatly appreciated.
Originally Published June 30, 2010.
Cody Taber
October 4, 2014 at 9:45 amFirst things first. EXCELLENT Recipe!!!!
Hello, I randomly found your Waldorf Chicken Salad recipe about three years ago when looking for a standard recipe for the sandwich version. I say sandwich version because most people think I’m talking about lettuce, onion, tomato, chicken, ranch dressing when I say Chicken Salad.
The first time I made it, everyone loved it. The second time I made it, a couple weeks later everyone loved it. The third time I made it there was no change, everyone loved it. I’ve probably made it ten times and it was great every time. Each time my ratios on the ingredients were different for various reasons. Happy life, happy wife type reasons. She wanted more grapes, or more onion is a big hit.
Last night I completed the manifesto of all batches with everything having gone perfectly. This was to fulfill the desperate needs of an extremely pregnant co-worker who fell in love with this stuff a few weeks ago. She’s having her baby shower today and asked me to make a batch for her and she would pay me. I knew it wasn’t cheap to make but it’s worth it. This batch came out so much better than any of the others, and I’m very critical of food I make. I’m not a chef by any means, I’m just the one who cooks in our family.
I’ve wanted to leave a comment for a long time, and just happen to have a few minutes now – it’s turned into quite the long winded response.
Some notes; of which you can feel free to remove from this comment, that I’ve always thought when making this.
In the beginning I found myself wondering how to prepare the “cooked chicken”. Chicken can be the hardest thing to get right until you learn the tricks of the trade. I think I learned most of them here. I use the seasoning you use on the Drummies (another always-a-hit recipe) I pound the breasts one at a time in a gallon freezer bag to an even thickness, maybe a half inch? I never measured. Then I trim fat, it just seems easier for some reason. Then I lay out a couple of long strips of aluminum foil on the counter so I have an easily disposable work surface. I sprinkle both side with your seasoning and then take them to the grill. The grill needs to be preheated for quite a while in my opinion; also something I think I learned here. Turning it on for 10 minutes is not the same as 20 in most cases. I start with a low flame warm up and then crank to my final cooking temp 5 minutes before I put chicken on. I was cooking ten breast halves this time because I was making a very large batch. I then turn the burners off so I can spray the grates with cooking oil without a flareup, quickly add the chicken with the rough side up first and then quickly turn the burners back on. Lid down, 7 minutes later I’m looking for all the pieces to be a bright white and juicy. I then turn them over with steel tongs (don’t like nylon here). The burner closest to the propane tank; rear left, is always the hottest on my cheap home store grill, so I move those pieces front right, and the front right to rear left. Then I close the lid. I checked after three full minutes and they all looked good. I put them in a large foil lined bowl and quickly covered them tightly with foil and let them rest at least ten minutes but it became more like 20 this time while I mixed the other ingredients together. For the first time I realized the chicken was nearly perfect; no pink, very juicy, nice grill marks, and so simply flavorful with your simple seasoning. I forgot this batch had the cayenne in it, so it had a bit of a kick, but with the other ingredients it was toned way down in the end. I took the cooked pieces and with washed disposable gloves I tore the chicken apart into chunks and considered using it like that. I normally use the large kitchen knife to chop it up, but I’ve always disliked how the chicken was always so square in the end. The wife said I shouldn’t leave it chunky because the pregnant lady was expecting it to be like she had experienced. So with that I thew about four breast halves into the Ninja for a quick chop. Well 5 seconds on number 1 and I had nearly ground chicken. I set this aside thinking I’ll just use that for a separate batch of simple chicken salad. I took the remaining chuck chicken and laid it on the cutting board in a long mound and pressed the knife though all of it until I came to a consistency I liked. At this point I had mixed the apple, celery, half a large red onion finely diced, grapes halved, and the roasted walnuts. Inthe end I used the whole red onion. I then used Hellmans real mayonnaise. I’ve never used this brand before, I’ve always used Kraft with Olive Oil with the green lid. Everyone liked the end result before, but I always felt this was the wrong mayo due to the olive taste, and probably the reduced fat (half the calories of Hellmans). No measuring here, but I make sure to use a dedicate rubber spatula in the jar that never touches the food. For this large batch I used half a large container So about 15 ounces now that I look. That tuned out to be a little bit too much, but you can’t take it back. So it was a good thing I had set aside that finely chopped chicken from the Ninja. I added that into the batch, and all the sudden a beam of light shone in the kitchen window; even at 10pm, the weirdest thing. The aroma (not smell) of this stuff is always amazing. The roasted walnuts, the chicken, grapes, apple, and even the celery could all be made out. One taste led to two tastes and three. Absolute perfection this time. The wife even agreed this was the best batch yet.
I pondered quite a bit what made it so much better, on top of always being really good in the past. I feel like the mayo without the olive oil taste made a big difference for my tastes, the increased fat of the Hellmans unfortunately probably added flavor too, and I really think the finely chopped chicken added a lot somehow.
Sorry to be so long winded, please edit as you see fit. I really just wanted to comment about how good it was and mention that if I was wondering about how to cook the chicken, I bet a lot of others do too. Maybe you can do a piece about that if you haven’t already. I haven’t seen it if you did.
DrDan
October 5, 2014 at 8:19 amThanks for the note and rating.
You do go on a bit but with great enthusiasm. Nothing wrong with that. The precooked chicken… I frequently have some around from other cooking’s. There seems to be and extra few in the package. I sometime freeze them but frequently just cook everything in the package. Some people use rotisserie chickens. Another option would be a crock pot with some broth for about 2 hours on high until 165. But you’re doing just fine.
DrDan