This California Chicken Salad recipe features a creamy dressing with greek yogurt and grapes, cashews, and celery that add great texture and fresh flavors. It makes a delicious meal and is perfect with croissants, crackers, in a pita, or served over a bed of greens.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This creamy chicken salad recipe is our take on the classic Whole Foods Market dish, the Sonoma Chicken Salad. While you will see a few differences between the two, we love the changes we've made to make it our own! This recipe is so easy and comes together very quickly! All you'll need to do is a bit of chopping and mixing. It is great for an easy and delicious lunch and would be a great meal prep option too.
Ingredient Notes
- Cooked chicken - there are several ways you can prepare cooked chicken to create the best chicken salad. You can used grilled chicken, cook chicken in the instant pot, or bake chicken prior to making chicken salad. If you want pre-cooked chicken to speed up the cooking process, you can definitely use a rotisserie chicken, leftover chicken, or canned chicken. We recommend using cooled or room temperature chicken for this recipe.
- Grapes - quartered juicy grapes are one of our favorite additions to create the best California chicken salad! We typically use red grapes, but green grapes will work great too. Just make sure you choose seedless grapes.
- Cashews - we love using roasted salted cashews in this recipe. You can buy cashews whole and chop them up on your own or buy them as halves and pieces.
- Celery - crunchy celery is a great addition to a classic chicken salad recipe!
- Dressing ingredients - Plain greek yogurt, honey, dijon mustard, lemon juice, onion powder, sea salt, and black pepper make up the creamy dressing for this chicken salad. We prefer to use greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise for a lightened up chicken salad.
See the recipe card below for a complete ingredient list and full ingredient amounts.
Equipment You’ll Need
- Knife and cutting board
- Large bowl
- Small bowl
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Fork, spoon, or rubber spatula
Step by Step Directions
1: In a large bowl, combine the chopped chicken, grapes, cashews, and celery.
2: In a small bowl, combine greek yogurt, honey, mustard, lemon juice, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Mix with a fork until well combined.
3: Add the greek yogurt dressing into the large bowl and mix until the chicken, grapes, cashews, and celery are evenly coated.
4: Enjoy this California chicken salad inside a croissant or pita or on top of crackers or a bed of lettuce.
For the full recipe instructions, scroll down to the recipe card at the bottom of the page.
Tips & Variations
- There are several ways to eat this classic chicken salad, so we wanted to discuss a few of the options here! One favorite way is as a sandwich, whether that be in a croissant, between sandwich bread, or inside of a pita. You can also use it to make tortilla wraps or lettuce wraps. It is also delicious on top of your favorite cracker!
- While we love this recipe as is, here are some ideas for other additions and swaps you can make to your chicken salad: Poppy seeds, chopped pecans, chopped apples, green onions, red bell peppers, or red onion.
- If you don't happen to have lemon juice on hand, you can try swapping it for apple cider vinegar.
FAQ
If you have leftover California chicken salad, we recommend storing it in an airtight container or in a bowl covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator.
We recommend consuming this chicken salad within 4 days.
This recipe is gluten-free and can easily be made dairy-free as well. If you need a gluten-free version, make sure you serve the chicken salad with gluten-free bread, pita, or crackers. For a dairy-free recipe, use a dairy-free yogurt for the creamy dressing.
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If you make this California Chicken Salad, please let us know how it turns out in the comments below and/or rate the recipe! Don’t forget to tag us on Instagram to show us your finished product—it makes our day every time we see you trying the recipes we love!
California Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups cooked chicken, chopped
- 1/2 cup quartered grapes
- 1/3 cup chopped cashews
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 tsp honey
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the chopped chicken, quartered grapes, chopped cashews, and chopped celery.
- In a small bowl, combine the plain Greek yogurt, honey, mustard, lemon juice, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Mix with a fork until well combined.
- Add the Greek yogurt dressing into the large bowl and mix until the chicken, grapes, cashews, and celery are evenly coated.
- Enjoy this California chicken salad inside a croissant or pita or on top of crackers or a bed of lettuce.
Notes
- There are several ways to eat this classic chicken salad, so we wanted to discuss a few of the options here! One favorite way is as a sandwich, whether that be in a croissant, between sandwich bread, or inside of a pita. You can also use it to make tortilla wraps or lettuce wraps. It is also delicious on top of your favorite cracker!
- While we love this recipe as is, here are some ideas for other additions and swaps you can make to your chicken salad: Poppy seeds, chopped pecans, chopped apples, green onions, red bell peppers, or red onion.
- If you don't happen to have lemon juice on hand, you can try swapping it for apple cider vinegar.
The recipe can be found on My Fitness Pal by searching "BWB California Chicken Salad." Please note that this is for the chicken salad only and not the croissant, crackers, pita, etc.
The nutrition content provided for each recipe is an estimate created through the My Fitness Pal database. Please be aware that the nutritional content of each recipe may vary based on the products you use, the precision of your measurements, and the source you use to obtain nutrition data. While we try to provide accurate information, we give no guarantee regarding the accuracy of the nutritional information provided.
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