Curry Chicken Salad

Chicken salad can be preeetttyy iffy for me. Sometimes it can just be a pile of dry chicken coated in what seems to be straight mayo…hard pass. I don’t love it when it’s made with canned chicken, and I definitely don’t love it if I can taste the mayo. If it’s made with rotisserie chicken, that’s better, but the best case scenario is this (👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼) right here, friends!

This chicken salad has a combo of mayo + Greek yogurt as the base for the sauce (along with a bunch of other delicious add-ins), and the chicken is cooked fresh, coated in a curry powder and seared in a pan before finishing off in the oven. The bites of chicken are SO juicy and tender, and the sauce is loaded with flavor that will have you craving this every 👏 single 👏 day 👏 for lunch.

You can eat it straight up plain (fave), spoon it liberally onto a slice or two of toasted bread, pile it into a wrap, eat it with crackers/sliced veggies, etc…there are lots of yummy options, and you can do whatever your beautiful heart desires as long as heaping amounts of this delicious chicken salad end up in yo belly STAT.

Let’s talk details.

• For the chicken. Loaded up with curry powder, salt, and pepper, each breast is seared hard in hot pan for 3 minutes per side. Then we throw those babies into an oven to cook for another 8 minutes. 3 – 3 – 8 = my absolute fave way to cook and eat chicken. It turns out perfectly cooked and juicy every time. BIG FAN. The chicken breasts rest for a while out of the oven to #1 let those juices redistribute, and #2 let it cool so we aren’t making hot chicken salad <<< no spank you.
• The sauce + add ins. We’ve got mayo, Greek yogurt, curry powder, cucumber, cilantro, almonds, green onion, and a hefty squeeze of lime juice. All of that gets stirred together and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. The mayo and Greek yogurt make things nice and creamy, the curry powder adds an extra punch of flavor, layering in with the curry powder we used to seasoned our chicken earlier, the cucumber adds a fresh crunch, the cilantro adds a brightness, the almonds add extra texture, and the green onions add a sharp bite. It is flavor + texture heaven 💃🏻!

I’m telling you guys, no more boring chicken salad over here – I’ll take this curry chicken salad every single time instead, please and thank you! Curry makes everything better. Thanks for bein’ you, curry. Thanks for bein’ you.

So we are trying something new over at our house with little Ford. He has been fighting his afternoon nap a lot lately, not crying necessarily but just sitting up in his crib wide awake and playing for anywhere between twenty minutes to an HOUR. He’s also been taking much longer to fall asleep at night, which ends in him falling asleep way later than he should be for bed time.

So we are saying bye bye to his afternoon nap and moving him to one nap a day…tentatively. We will see how it goes. His little body seems to be giving us signals that he’s ready for it with the nap fighting and late bedtime, but we will see. Today is attempt number one. We pushed his normally 9:30 am nap to 11 am, which required lots of distractions – i.e. Target and playground visits. So far, he’s still asleep from that nap, and it’s been a little over three whopping hours, so I’d say that’s a good sign! When he’s overtired, he takes short, crappy naps, so I’m glad that didn’t happen today. From here, he will just have to stay awake until bed time, which shouldn’t be too hard since this nap is lasting so dang long.

In my mind, this means good things and bad things. Good things – we aren’t restricted to the house so much during the day for naps and have wayyyyy more freedom during the day to be out and about + have more of a social life 😍. Bad things – I lose about an hour and a half during the day that I previously had to myself to nap, clean, shower, and do other “me” things.

I feel like the pros outweigh the cons, though – the extra freedom during the day will be nice. But we will see what happens. This is only day one!

**Will celebrate more freedom while slightly mourning less “me time” with chicken salad**

Curry Chicken Salad

★★★★★

5 from 1 reviews

• Author: Annie Chesson
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 7 servings 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 2 chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds of chicken total)
• 3 teaspoons curry powder, divided
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup green onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup cucumber, peeled, seeds removed, roughly chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees
2. Season your chicken breasts liberally with salt and pepper, and rub 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder on each side of each chicken breast (2 teaspoons total for both breasts)
3. Heat an oven safe skillet (a cast iron is perfect for this) over medium high heat with some olive oil. When hot, add your chicken breasts
4. Sear for 3 minutes on each side, and then place in your preheated oven for 8 minutes
5. Remove from the oven and let rest until the chicken has come to room temperature (we don’t want hot chicken salad!). When it’s room temperature, dice into small, bite sized cubes and place in a medium bowl
6. To your diced chicken, add the rest of your ingredients (including the remaining teaspoon of curry powder!) and stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Notes

The oven cook time for the chicken may vary based on the size of your breasts. With two breasts that, together, weigh about 1.5 pounds, this cook time is perfect. If your chicken breasts are significantly larger, you may need to add a few more minutes in the oven. They will continue to cook a bit when you remove them from the oven and let them rest.

Total recipe time does not account for the time it will take the chicken to cool to room temperature

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1/2 cup
• Calories: 271
• Sugar: 1 g
• Sodium: 175 mg
• Fat: 17 g
• Carbohydrates: 3 g
• Fiber: 1 g
• Protein: 26 g
• Cholesterol: 63 mg

If you make this or any of my other recipes, be sure to Instagram it and hashtag #thegarlicdiaries!

In the mood for more yummy lunch recipes? Check these out:

Loaded Veggie Soba Noodles with Peanut Sauce

Crazy Easy Three Ingredient Pimento Mac and Cheese

Super Simple Tomato Mozzarella Salad