Mango-Jalapeno Curried Chicken Salad

The PTA at my son's elementary school holds an appreciation luncheon for teachers about once a month. Newsflash - I love to cook - so I take these opportunities to make things and have fun in the kitchen and share it with these well-deserving faculty members. 

This month the theme was sandwiches and salads. I signed up to take a batch of chicken salad. I love chicken salad. And, while I make quite a few variations of chicken salad, a few ingredients are constants: oven-roasted chicken breast meat, chopped celery, and chopped onion. From there, the variations are endless. This time, I decided to change it up a bit and toss in some of the fabulous Mango-Jalapeno sauce that I've previously mentioned here. It is an amazingly versatile sauce that just about goes on anything....and makes it better. If you haven't made it yet, you absolutely should. Follow this link to get the recipe to make a batch. Once you do, you can make this rendition of chicken salad.

(Mea culpa: this post was not really on the docket of things to do today, and therefore, there are no photos of said salad - imagine, if you will, a really moist and interestingly delicious-looking chicken salad.)

Mango-Jalapeno Curried Chicken Salad

• 3-4 bone-in skin-on chicken breasts - baked in the oven; method of your choice ( I like to put a little olive oil and garlic on mine and cook at 400 until internal temp is 165F)
• 3-4 ribs of celery, chopped as fine or chunky as you choose
• 1/2 small onion (I tend to stick to sweet onion or purple onion); chopped on the fine side
• 1 can water chestnuts, chopped
• 1/2 C mayo (just an estimate as I go by level of moistness - you can make it as moist (or gooey) or dry as you like)
• 1/4 C of mango-jalapeno sauce (recipe here) or Fischer-Wieser makes a mango-habanero sauce and I'm sure there are other purchased sauces out there that would fit the bill
• 1 Tbsp curry powder (again, suit your tastes)
• 1/4 C golden raisins

1. Cook chicken, allow to cool, Remove skin and remove meat from bone. Shred or cube chicken meat. (Can you use boneless skinless breasts? Yes, you can do whatever you choose. But, the meat won't be as moist and flavorful.)
2. In a big bowl, mix chopped chicken, all dry ingredients. Add mayo and mango sauce and curry.  Mix well. Chill well and serve.

 I like to serve this with crackers or potato chips. Makes a great sandwich (especially on those little Hawaiian rolls) and also is fabulous as the filling to a lettuce wrap.

Happy Cooking!

sld

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