You Shouldn't Always Shred Chicken For Chicken Salad. Here's Why

What's your go-to method for making chicken salad? Some people may hand-shred the chicken, others use a mixer to do the shredding, while still others dice it into chunks. Is there one method that's universally acknowledged as the best, though? Matt Harding, chief innovation officer at fast casual restaurant chain Piada Italian Street Food, says no, not really. As he told The Takeout, "It's a combination of what you are looking for in presentation, flavor, and mouthfeel."

In Harding's opinion, you can go either shredded or cubed if you're making a standard mayonnaise-based salad, even one lightened up with yogurt. With certain other bases, however, you might want to stick with cubed chicken. As an example, Harding cautioned: "Shredded chicken can trap pesto on pieces of chicken and will result in flavor bombs intermittently within the salad."

Another aspect to consider is the appearance of the salad. Harding said shredding and cubing chicken results in different looks, with cubed chicken possibly better suited to chicken salad with bigger pieces of mix-ins, such as grapes. That way, the pieces of chicken can be cut so they are the same size as the grapes, thus leading to a more structured look that might be better for a party or another situation where appearances matter. This is not to say that Harding dismissed shredded chicken for such salads, though, especially if it's for informal occasions. As he noted, cubed and shredded chicken "will both taste roughly the same, but the mouthfeel and eating experience will be different."

If you've been on Team Shred all along but have your heart set on a recipe, such as our coronation chicken salad, that might be better served with chopped chicken, Matt Harding offered a few tips on how to prepare it. He said, "The best way to carve and remove meat from a roasted chicken is in large pieces, using a sharp knife and an understanding of the bird's anatomy."

Harding advised removing the chicken skin before cutting because it "makes it easier to see the natural seams of the meat beneath." You don't need to toss it, since you can always eat it yourself. Even better, bake it in the oven until it becomes super crispy and scatter it over the finished chicken salad. When the bird's been denuded, remove each side of the breast by cutting down to the bone on either side of the cartilage, then angling the knife outward and slicing along the rib cage from back to front in short strokes until you reach the joint where the wing meets the collarbone.

Once that's done, turn the chicken around so the legs are facing you, and hold each thigh up near the hip joint with your thumbs beneath said joint. Twist the legs outward while simultaneously pushing to pop them out of the sockets, then cut through any connecting tissue. Now that your bird is deboned, you can chop the chicken into chunks sized to match the rest of the salad ingredients.