Your heart won’t stop because of this delicious, healthy chicken salad recipe, but it might stop because it is so darn delicious! It tastes just like regular chicken salad (if not better), and it’s healthy.
Healthified Chicken Salad
~While usual chicken salad recipes contain bad-for-your-heart mayonnaise, this recipe has good-for-your-heart avocado! Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, and, of course, sugar-free!
Serves 2, but feel free to halve, double, or triple recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked, diced or shredded chicken
- 1 stalk celery
- 1/2 apple
- 1 carrot
- 1 green onion/scallion
- 1/2 avocado
- 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon capers
- optional: 1 tsp fresh dill
Chop the carrots, celery, and apple and mix with the chicken and capers. Then, squish the avocado until smooth and mix into the veggie-chicken mix. Add the mustard, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and serve over a bed of spinach or on your favorite whole grain bread.
Health Benefits
- Avocado: Avocados are high in monounsaturated fats that help the skin stay clear and protect your brain. It is also a good source of the carotenoid lutein. Lutein protects against macular degeneration and cataracts, two disabling age-related eye diseases. Avocado, like olive oil, is high in oleic acid, which has been shown to prevent breast cancer in numerous studies.
- Chicken: Chicken’s high protein content can help protect against bone loss and help build muscles. It is also a very good source of the cancer-protective B vitamin, niacin. Components of DNA require niacin, and a deficiency of niacin (as well as other B-complex vitamins) has been directly linked to genetic (DNA) damage. The B vitamins in chicken can help prevent Alzheimer’s, boost energy, and help your heart stay strong!
- Apples: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away!” One large apple contains 30% of your daily value of fiber, and it helps aid in digestion and those suffering from constipation. A flavanoid called phloridzin that is found only in apples may protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis and may also increase bone density. Boron, another ingredient in apples, also strengthens bones. It can also help lower cholesterol.
Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:
Describe your perfect picnic. Is it on the beach? By the lake? Under a tree? What kind of food would you serve? What kinds of activities would you do?
My perfect picnic would be on top of a grassy hill underneath a huge tree. 75* and sunny with blue skies. I would sit right in the grass on a huge blanket, and drink sparkling water. My picnic basket would be full of traditional picnic food: chicken salad, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and hummus, and grain-free fudge brownies for dessert!
I love chicken salad! Sometimes I just stir plain yogurt in with the chicken and some veggies. This looks delicious!
I love having picnics at the beach. But my perfect picnic would be in a big beautiful flower field, under a tree! 🙂
I wish I could go to the beach more often, but it takes a good 40 minutes to drive there, and I am just so darn busy!!!! Maybe we could have a healthy picnic at the beach sometime…hehe…. 🙂
oooo i love this salad! minus the meat for me 😉
my perfect picnic woud be under a tree for sure!! i love the traditional ones!
You could try making it a garbanzo bean salad, or tofu???
This looks sooo delicious! I love avocado but I’ve never thought to use it in chicken salad. Pure genius, really 🙂 I can’t wait to make this! Thank you so much for sharing!
I love that you used avocado instead of mayo in this recipe. I have 2 avocados on my counter and was trying to figure out how to use them [instead of just throwing them in the blender and making a salad dressing]. Do you think it would work for egg salad too? I’ll give it a try.
I’ll take a picnic anywhere really. I’d say my favorite though is out in the mountains or at the beach – it has to be the ocean though.
I definitely think it would work for egg salad!!! I want to give that a try because I am a huge egg salad fan….and deviled eggs fan….I should try that, too!
I tried it with egg salad today… and it’ll need some work. I don’t know what I was thinking not adding any spices. It tastes really bland. I used 1/2 avocado & 2 eggs, 1 tbsp mustard, salt, and pepper. It needs… hmmm more salt, more pepper, lemon juice, maybe some green onions.. It has potential though!
Yeah, I put lemon juice, green onions, and capers in mine 🙂 YUM!
Love how there’s no mayo in this recipe. Chicken salad always tends to be so fatty, this recipe looks simple and pics are great! 😀
I’ve never thought to put avocado in my chicken salad!! You’re a genius!
My perfect picnic would include a beach, some strawberries, and an egg salad sandwich!
Ahh that looks so good! It’s making me long for springtime weather (Michigan is COLD!).
I’ve been on my perfect picnic – at a park/mini forest in France eating sandwiches with my host family and learning some French words. 🙂
Megan
What a delcious & tasty looking chicken salad!! MMMMM,…!!
I woul go for a pic nic with my husband with our bikes & sit on a mountain top with a blanket & champagne, smoked salmon & tasty home made sandwiches. Or at a beautiful lake in mid shadow! Oooh yes!
that chicken salad looks so healthy and colorful, YUM!
Ohhh that looks SO goooood!! I’m going to have to try this and replace the chicken with chickpeas! I <3 chicken salad! 🙂
And your chocolate pie from your last post looks absolutely fabulous! 😀
oh thanks for sharing this recipe!! i haven’t had chicken salad in sooo long! this looks great!!!! i definatly want to try this!
I love chicken salad with avocado! Yours looks perfect!
Perfect picnic? That’s tough as there are so many places I love. One is in a grassy/tree area at a local park. But I also love the beach. However, a toddler and a picnic at the beach can sometimes be a problem… Finally, we love to hike, and there is a great picnic place in an old barn at the turn-around point of one of our hikes. I would definitely take your chicken salad though wherever I have my picnic! 🙂
this combines soooo many of my favorite things! Can’t wait to make it!
My perfect picnic would be under a honey tree! 😉
Your Chicken Salad sounds delicious! :d I love that it is dairy free! That means I can make this! 😀
xoxo
Kathleen