If I take all the things I want to do and measure them against the time I have before and after work and on weekends, they don’t balance out. There are tons of things that just aren’t going to get done. Then come all the extra things I want to do during the holidays. This often means that I don’t have time to put together something to take to work for lunch, so I eat out. I enjoy that quite a bit, but I’d rather bring lunch with me and eat out on occasion. Add into this mix that I’d prefer to eat something I made myself, rather than processed food, and now you see how Chicken Salad in a Hurry came to be.

Believe me, you can make this sandwich while you’re getting ready for work.

I start by raising my own free-range chickens. Just kidding. I start by grilling three or four packaged chicken breasts in a Quisinart Griddler. It’s not my favorite way to cook chicken (this is), but it’s a good way. The key reason is that it’s one of those “set it and forget it” things. And no frills: I open the package of chicken, place the breasts onto the grill, season them maybe, close the thing, and walk away and brush my teeth, dry my hair, put on my work clothes, whatever. When it’s done, I unplug the thing, put the chicken in a container and shove it in the fridge, put the grill plates in the sink to soak, and leave for work. I’m going to go out for lunch that day, but the rest of the week, I’m going to have chicken salad. (Use leftover Thanksgiving turkey – even easier.)

Making the salad is a total breeze. I make it to order, rather than making a huge batch of it, because it only takes about 10 minutes, start to finish, and I can vary the ingredients each morning. I start by quickly chopping up a half of a breast on the cutting board. Add a big, fat dollop of mayo, a little salt (maybe, depending on the saltiness of other potential ingredients, such as Dijon), a lot of pepper, and one or two add-ins. Mix it right on the board with the spoon I used for the mayo in one hand and a rubber spatula in the other. Scrape it onto best-quality, store-bought bread, top it with greens, cut it in half, wrap it up, et voila. Rinse off the board, leave it in the sink, grab a piece of fruit and maybe some sparkling water, and off I go.

I’m telling you, this is a sandwich I look forward to eating.

Many – but not all – of the add-ins need prep. If they do, I’ll do it beforehand, because there’s no time in the morning.

Essential Add-Ins:

• Mustard: yellow, Dijon, stone-ground, cherry-mustard. I’ll add this along with the mayo. A heaping teaspoon is about right.
• Herbs & Spices: fines herbs, fresh basil, fresh thyme, parsley, paprika. I’ll sprinkle this over the chicken before mixing it. Eyeball it. Be generous.
• Cheese: goat cheese, Cheddar, Provolone, Brie. With the exception of goat cheese, I’ll spread the cheese on the bread, or lay a slice of it onto the bread, and scrape the chicken salad on top of it. You have two choices with the goat cheese: either chunk it up and sprinkle it over the finished salad, OR chunk it up and mix it into the chicken straight away, before you’ve added anything else. Goat cheese will readily mix in with your dressing, so if you want to have flecks of cheese, you can’t do any mixing once you’ve added it. If it is going to be mixed into a homogenous dressing, that I suggest you start with the cheese, so that you’ll see how much creaminess you’ve created before adding mayo. Since you’re now going to be light on the flavor that mayo adds, you may need to consider starting with a dollop of mustard (Dijon would be great), so you get in all that flavor, before finally reassessing the creaminess and adding just enough mayo to hold everything together.
• Greens: baby spinach, lettuce, watercress. I’ll lay this over the chicken salad before adding the top piece of bread.

Non-Essential-but-Fabulous Add-Ins:

• Fruits: apple; fresh mandarin orange or clementine segments, seeded and halved (these are SO surprisingly good); dried apricot, fresh mango, dried cherries, halved grapes
• Veggies: celery; red onion, scallions, or chive; shredded carrot, very thinly sliced cucumber. Go easy on these.
• Bonus Items: bacon, cashews, slivered almonds, walnuts
• Options: Greek yogurt instead of (all or part of) mayo, hot sauce, lemon juice or zest, lime juice or zest

Some of my favorite combos:

• Fines herbs. Just that alone is fantastic.
• Dried cherries and slivered almonds. Nice! Don’t go too heavy on the cherries.
• Mango, basil chiffonade – more than you might think, chopped cashews, loads of fresh black pepper, parsley. Go easy on the mayo and skip the mustard unless you happen to have cherry mustard – in that case, just a touch. This goes perfectly with pita bread.
• This one’s so nice: mayo, stone-ground mustard, salt, loads of coarsely-ground black pepper, a full tablespoon of lime zest and juice (while prepping in advance, I’ll place the zest and juice into a single container and give a serious shaking before measuring out some for use), a lot of dried cherries (or cherry-flavored cranberries, because money), almonds, cheddar cut into small dice, basil, parsley. This is great on whole-wheat bread. Although I eyeball almost everything during this process, I do measure out the lime juice, because if you go overboard, well, you’d really have to love lime.

Chicken Salad in a Hurry

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything.

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