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Poppy Seed Chicken Salad

Poppy Seed Chicken Salad is a fancy chicken salad laced with poppy seeds and cranberries. It’s suitable for a weekend brunch, ladies luncheon, or a game-day party.

Poppy Seed Chicken Salad in croissants

How many recipes for chicken salad do you have?

Chicken salad recipes are like blue jeans:

  • You can never have enough of either.
  • Everybody has his favorite brand or recipe.
  • There’s a pair of jeans or chicken salad recipe for every occasion
  • Every cook has a way of adapting recipes to his own tastes just like we all have a certain way we like to wear our jeans.
  • A basic pair of jeans or a basic recipe is timeless.

How many recipes for chicken salad do you have?

Although I only have one chicken salad recipe in my index, I have several. One is an everyday mix-in-two-minutes-spread-on-white-bread recipe. Another is a curried chicken affair. (I make it when I don’t want my husband to eat it.) The third is this Poppy Seed Chicken Salad recipe.

Creating the Recipe:

I found the original recipe buried in a notebook of company recipes for a pizza chain. I used to work for Pizza Inn in research and development.

First, I set about revising the amounts to make them domestically appropriate. Then, I dressed it up a bit when things like toasted almonds. Finally, I lightened it up a bit with yogurt and a touch of lemon juice.

Poppy Seed Chicken Salad served with crackers

Ways to Serve Chicken Salad:

I love this chicken salad with poppy seeds served with homemade rolls of almost any kind. My current favorites are these sweet potato rolls made into crescents or “butter horns” (as my mom used to call them) shapes. Other possibilities include crescent rolls out of a can or use croissants.

Another idea for chicken salad is to make sweet potato chips and eat them with a spoonful of chicken salad on top. Low-carb never tasted so good.

What I do most often is spoon it on top of a huge salad (vacuum-packed). Add a little olive oil and vinegar. Sprinkle with fresh Parmesan cheese. Eating this for lunch is guaranteed to improve the rest of the afternoon.

If you make this and enjoy the recipe, it would help me and others if you would return to this post and leave a rating (on the recipe card itself underneath the picture). Although always appreciated, no comment is required. Thanks so much! Paula

Poppy Seed Chicken Salad

Poppy Seed Chicken Salad

Yield: 5 servings
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

A fancy chicken salad full of white chicken, celery, almonds, poppy seeds, and dried cranberries. A great way to recycle leftover rotisserie chicken

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
  • 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
  • 1/4 cup celery, finely chopped
  • 1-2 tablespoons poppy seeds
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/4 cup Greek yogurt, unflavored
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • Pinch of sugar
  • Salt

Instructions

  1. Stir all ingredients together in a bowl until combined.
  2. Chill.

Notes

Substitutions:

  1. Replace the almonds with pecans. Absolutely divine!
  2. Substitute sour cream or more mayonnaise for the yogurt.
  3. Vinegar is a good replacement for lemon juice.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 5 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 384 Total Fat: 30g Saturated Fat: 5g Trans Fat: 0g Unsaturated Fat: 23g Cholesterol: 61mg Sodium: 307mg Carbohydrates: 13g Fiber: 3g Sugar: 9g Protein: 17g
© Paula of saladinajar.com
Cuisine: American / Category: Salads
A fancy chicken salad full of white chicken, celery, almonds, poppy seeds and dried cranberries.

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  1. I made this for dinner tonight and it was a huge hit! It is so easy to put together, yet tastes special because of the almonds and cranberries. I used shredded chicken (canned) which really cut down on the prep time. This is definitely going into my recipe file. Thank you, Paula.

    Reply

  2. Paula, I made this chicken salad for my son’s 9th birthday party. He wanted a cricket themed party (the sport-my husband is South African) so I wanted something a little elegant for the adults. We had beautiful weather and I made & assembled the sandwiches on homemade buns (yes! I used my bread machine! I used a sour cream dough, however.) with a piece of romaine lettuce and a toothpick through the center to keep it all together. I received many, many compliments! Thank you for sharing your fabulous recipe & helping to make my son’s party special!
    L

    Reply

  4. A dear friend sent a link to me, which led me to your youtube.com salad-in-a-jar video, and I’m so glad that she sent it! After viewing that video, I just had to do a search in order to find your blog, Paula. Who could resist?

    Well, you grabbed my attention right away with your yummy sounding chicken salad recipe. I know what I’ll be putting together tomorrow! I’m off to my kitchen just now to prepare dinner, but I’ll be right back to take a better peek at your site.

    Reply

  5. This sounds great! To make you laugh, I made poppy seed muffins the other day and accidently used CHIA seeds! I had bought them (because they are supposed to be so good for you) and put them in a jar just like the one that my poppy seeds were stored in. I didn’t tell anyone, and no one was the wiser. Still giggling about that…

    Reply

    • That question is like asking who is my favorite child!!

      Current favorite would be the sweet potato rolls followed by My favorite dinner rolls or brioche. If you want regular bread– the Sweet Milk White Bread would be fabulous.

      Reply

  9. I always like chicken salad and this one looks yummy. I did make your sweet potato dinner rolls and we all enjoyed them for our Christmas dinner.

    Happy New Year, Paula : )

    Reply

  10. Ok never mind. I didn’t see the entire post on iPad mini until after clicking submit. You already answered my question.

    Reply

  11. Already made this & packed in lunch for work! Yum! And so easy to throw together! What type of bread/crackers do you recommend to go with this for maximum satisfaction of my taste buds?

    Reply

    • Hey Susie,
      I forgot to tell you that Special K Crackers in the Multi-Grain variety are really good with this salad. Actually. They’re just really good. Period. Similar to wheat thins. That’s what you see in the top picture of this post.

      Reply

  16. This is a great salad, delicious! Was fortunate to receive some and I would definitely make it myself. The yogurt gives it a different texture/taste. Thanks Paula!

    Reply