3 Ways To Make Chicken Salad A Little Sweeter

Chicken salad, at its most basic, is made from chopped or shredded chicken held together with a binder such as mayonnaise. Many cooks like to add a crunchy element in the form of celery or onions, some prefer savory flavor enhancers such as bacon and cheese, and others heat things up with cayenne or jalapeños. Recipe blogger Joanne Gallagher, however, suggests making chicken salad sweeter with the addition of fruit. She's hardly alone in this preference, since Ina Garten gives chicken salad a bright twist with mango chutney, while coronation chicken calls for apricot jam. Even canned fruit cocktail works surprisingly well in chicken salad.

Gallagher, who shares cooking tips and ideas on her website Inspired Taste, told The Takeout, "If you want contrasting flavors, you can add a bit of sweetness to your chicken salad. This especially works in creamier salads where you'll want to brighten things up." If you're still dubious about adding a sweetener to a chicken-based dish even after Ina Garten's endorsement, bear in mind that most barbecue sauces tend to be quite sweet, and this condiment is frequently partnered with chicken. Plus, as Gallagher reassured us, "You won't necessarily be making it sugary; you're just adding a gentle lift around the savory chicken and dressing."

"Apples can also bring a crisp texture, providing a tart sweetness to liven things up," Joanne Gallagher suggests. If you really want to emphasize the sweetness, go for an apple such as Fuji, Honeycrisp, or Pink Lady. To offset the sweet flavors with some tartness, however, try a Granny Smith instead. Whichever apple you choose will need to be diced into fairly small pieces, since you won't want large chunks in your creamy salad, but there's no need to peel it. For health purposes, it's actually better to leave the peel on since apple skins are high in both antioxidants and fiber.

You're probably going to want a bit more in your salad than just apples, mayo, and chicken. As Gallagher told us, "I like contrasting flavors in my salads, so if you're working with apples, try some celery and a squeeze of lemon." Depending on how sweet you want the salad to be, she also suggested, "Honey will work best with Dijon and salt to lightly sweeten the dish." If the salad tastes too sweet to you, though, you can balance things out while enhancing the apple flavor by stirring in a splash of cider vinegar.

If you don't have fresh fruit on hand, you can use dried fruit to sweeten your chicken salad. Coronation chicken originally used dried apricots and may now incorporate raisins or sultanas (which also go by the name of golden raisins). Joanne Gallagher, however, prefers to use dried cranberries, aka Craisins. Fresh cranberries are mouth-puckeringly sour, but dried cranberries usually contain added sweeteners to offset their tartness. "Dried cranberries work well ... because they add chew and a tangy-sweet pop," opined Gallagher.

As to what other ingredients you can use in your cranberry-chicken salad, Gallagher suggested, "If you're using dried cranberries, they'll shine along with fresh herbs to make sure nothing feels too heavy." Chives are a good choice, although green onions will work just as well. Dill, parsley, and rosemary also play nicely with chicken and cranberries, while nuts such as pecans and walnuts frequently are featured in cranberry chicken salad recipes. Cranberries can be combined with apples, too, for a chicken salad with a double dose of fruit.

Grapes are a common ingredient in many chicken salad recipes, and not without reason. The way Joanne Gallagher expresses it, "I like a classic addition of grapes because they add bursts of juicy sweetness with a little crunch." Any kind of seedless grape will work, although green ones tend to be slightly tarter than black or red ones, and some home cooks may prefer the last-named variety due to the brighter hue. In order for the grapes to be the right size for the salad, they should be sliced in half before they're combined with the chicken and other ingredients. (Of course they don't need to be peeled. Even Mae West wasn't serious when she famously requested, "Peel me a grape.")

Speaking of those other ingredients, Gallagher advised, "Grapes will pair nicely with toasted nuts and a few sprinkles of black pepper." Almonds, pecans, and walnuts would all be great mix-ins, while grapes may also be combined with celery, green or red onions, and herbs such as parsley or tarragon.

Joanne Gallagher has one main caveat when it comes to sweetening your chicken salad, with or without fruit: "Contrast is most important; don't try for competing flavors. Each ingredient should have its own room to shine." While some chicken salad recipes do call for combining fruit with onions, she's not a fan. Onions, along with heavy spices such as chiles or garlic, have the potential to overpower the other elements.

Gallagher also urges restraint with the sweetener: "Keep it balanced by starting small and building up slowly." Whether it's fruit, sugar, or honey you're using, begin with a lot less than you think you'll need, because the No. 1 rule of recipe experimentation is that you can always add, but you cannot subtract. Gallagher also cautions against using one particular type of yogurt. While this ingredient makes a great mayonnaise swap if you want to lighten up your chicken salad, she says to stick with the plain kind and avoid anything flavored. Chicken salad tends to contain a fair amount of binder (unless it's made Frank Sinatra-style), so a lot of sugary yogurt could really throw things out of whack.