Chicken Salad Recipe

This is my favorite chicken salad recipe and it's been around in our family for several years now. It is a pretty basic recipe but I changed it around from the original one and added a seasoned salt and pepper instead of just regular salt and pepper. There are two secrets to this recipe, the first is that I use my favorite brand of seasonings, Lawry's Seasoned Salt and Pepper. My mother-in-law Bea introduced them to me as she used it in many of her dishes and she was a great cook. I always remember Bea telling me that if I wanted to add great flavor to my cooking, this is what I should add and I have always used it in this recipe. If you can't get Lawry's there are many other brands of course, it will just taste a little different and will probably be delicious, but as long as I can get Lawry's, this is what I will be using. Her heritage was French and English and this influenced her cooking. She originally came from Taunton, Massachusetts. Her grandparents on her Dad's side were French/Canadian and her grandfather made ladies rouge for a living. They moved from Canada in the late 1800's.

Today for lunch this is what I ate. I love broccoli and tomatoes and it rounded my meal off very nicely.

There aren't many ingredients needed; mayonnaise, Lawry's Seasoned Salt and Pepper, chicken breasts, celery and spring onions, but it all amounts to a great combination.

You'll find the whole recipe below but to start off I poach the chicken in just plain old water. I don't even bother using anything else, the simpler the better, and it certainly doesn't detract from the taste.

The second secret is that I chop everything very fine. It's just a personal preference as I always put my salad on a sandwich and to me it just tastes much better that way. Actually this was Gregg's idea so I can thank him. He doesn't like food too chunky and the first time I ever served it up it had bigger pieces of chicken. He very nicely asked if the next time I made it could I maybe chop it into smaller pieces? I did and decided that I preferred it much better this way, and the next time after that the pieces got even smaller. I loved it on sandwiches.

I chopped the celery and spring onions very fine also.

This is what it looks like after I have mixed everything but the mayonnaise.

And this is the finished product.

Now for the actual recipe. I have mentioned a certain brand of mayonnaise - Hellmans - because I enjoy it. I have also used Kraft, another brand I like.

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2 chicken breasts
3 stalks celery
4 spring onions
Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
Lawry’s Seasoned Pepper
Hellman’s Mayonnaise

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Put chicken in medium saucepan and cover with water. Bring to boil, turn heat down to medium-low for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through. Refrigerate until chilled (it’s easier to chop when cold).

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While chicken is cooking chop celery into fine dice and also thinly slice the spring onion.

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Slice chicken thinly and cross-cut slices until it is in small pieces. As I have mentioned before the secret of this recipe is to get everything chopped pretty fine.

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Put the cooked chopped chicken, celery and spring onion into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle seasoned salt and pepper over top; mix thoroughly. How much you use is entirely up to your own taste.

Get a couple of good dollops of mayonnaise and mix it in. Add more if needed. The mixture should be pretty moist.

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I have gotten about six sandwiches out of one recipe but it can easily be doubled. Like many dishes the flavor gets yummier the second day, and if there is any around for the third day, even better.