This easy chicken salad recipe is the perfect thing to do with last nights roast chicken and makes a dynamite lunch that's great to to take to work, school, or play. Throw in the usual ingredients, like celery red onion and mayo, kick it up a notch with grapes, walnuts and fresh dill, and then blow the roof off with curry powder and spicy brown porter mustard. Now that's a recipe for chicken salad!

Delicious, easy, no fail 10 minute chicken salad and chicken salad sandwiches.

Step 1: Ingredients

last nights roast chicken (I'm using a whole one, if it's really leftover chicken, you may just have certain pieces)
1/3 cup celery
1/3 cup grapes (optional, including grapes makes it a "Napa" style chicken salad)
2 tsp fresh dill
1/3 cup apple
1/3 cup red onion
1/4 cup currants
1/4 cup walnuts
3 tbsp mayo
1 tsp mustard (optional)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
1/2 tsp curry powder (optional)
salt to taste
pepper to taste
sandwich bread of your choice
sandwich fixings: lettuce, tomato, pickles, cheese, sprouts

Step 2: Prep and Chop Ingredients

Wash and prep the vegetables. This includes peeling the apple, removing the skin of the onion and pulling the dill off its sprigs.

Chop the apple, onion, and celery to a small size. Grapes get cut in half, walnuts and currants get chopped and the dill gets minced.

Set these ingredients aside.

Step 3: Tear Meat Off of the Chicken and Chop

Tear all of the meat off of the chicken carcass. I set the skin aside and eat it as a treat along with my sandwich - many throw it away because it is high in fat, but those people have some sort of problem with the pleasure center of their brains.

I think dark meat is far more flavorful than white meat, so I'm happy to include it in my chicken salad. Others may want to pick the dark meat and make their salad from the white meat of the breasts alone.

Roughly chop all of the meat and add it into a medium sized mixing bowl.

Step 4: Combine Ingredients

Combine the chopped ingredients with the chicken in the mixing bowl. Here's where you can tweak proportions of ingredients to your liking.

If you want a sweeter salad, include more apple, currants and grapes.

For a more savory mix, bulk up on your dill, onion and walnuts.

For a more mild standard chicken salad mix, put in less of all the ingredients and let the natural chicken flavor shine through.

Step 5: Add Mayo and Mustard

Add a healthy dose (3 tbsp) of mayo and a small amount (1tsp) of mustard. Those who like a wetter chicken salad, perhaps so wet so that white foamy liquid pools up at the corners of your mouth while you eat it, add in more mayo.

I sometimes include 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar in my chicken salad when I want to add in a brighter more acidic note to the sweet savory base that this recipe provides.

Step 6: Add Dry Flavors

Salt and pepper are essentials to chicken salad, otherwise it will taste bland. I throw a few shakes of curry powder in there as well to spice things up and give the chicken salad some depth. This is entirely optional, and if the thought of curry powder leaves a bad taste in your mouth (literally), feel free to leave it out.

Step 7: Mix and Make Your Sandwich

Mix the chicken salad thoroughly and place a lump of it on your sandwich bread. I prefer eating my chicken salad on some well toasted multi-grain bread. Pickles on the side are a plus, throw in some salt and vinegar chips, and you are eating a delicious gourmet chicken salad sandwich lunch.