Foodie Friday: Curried Chicken Salad

We love curry. A lot. In fact, Josh’s favorite comfort meal that I make for him is full of curry, so I decided to work some into our lunch rotation.

I used the Barefoot Contessa’s Curried Chicken Salad as my starting point, then adjusted a lot of the add-ins to suit our tastes and my weird dislike of random things (celery and raisins? No thank you) and Josh’s nut allergy (cashews are a big deal breaker).

I packaged it into serving sized containers for us, then had both pita bread and lettuce cups as choices to take along. The winner, hands down? The lettuce cups. While we agreed that the pita made it more filling, the lettuce cups just added a really nice brightness and crunch to it. Lesson learned.

Curried Chicken Salad

• 2 chicken breasts, bone in, skin on
• 4 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on 
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise (Get the good stuff. I used Hellman’s)
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup mango jam/jelly (you could use a chutney, but my store didn’t have any)
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 apple, peeled and diced
• 2 cups red grapes, quartered

Preheat oven to 350 degress. Drizzle chicken with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and cook for 35-40 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Combine mayonnaise, white wine, mango jam, and curry powder in food processor until well mixed and smooth. Prep your apple and grapes. 

When the chicken is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin and discard. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and put in a bowl with the apple and grapes. Pour about half of the dressing in and stire well. Keep adding until it reaches desired consistency. Let it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours for the flavors to really combine. It gets better every day.

Serve with lettuce wraps.