Rotisserie Chicken Salad for Dinner and A Movie At Home

When I had my own personal chef business, I would cook for many couples who either had no time to cook because they both had demanding jobs or they just hated to cook.  As a personal chef, the idea is to cook meals for a week or two, package and label them with instructions and freeze them.  The first meal, however, was not one to be frozen, but to be ready for dinner and a movie when the clients came home that very evening.

Apart from the regular menu we had agreed on, one of my requests was whether I could do something with leftover rotisserie chicken.    As you might imagine, many of these power couples would buy a roasted deli chicken for a quick meal and wonder what they could do with it after the first day.  So I would make a simple rotisserie chicken salad.  The chicken was already cooked and well seasoned so it was just a matter of cutting up the chicken, adding some onion and celery, and perhaps apples, raisins, avocados or nuts, depending on whether one of them had a food allergy

It turned out to be a favorite.  It also happens to be a favorite of mine for dinner and a movie at home.  You can have this with crackers for lunch or as a sandwich on a hard roll or croissant.  You can serve this rotisserie chicken salad as a main course on Romaine lettuce or baby spinach leaves with baked sweet potato fries and a glass of beer.  I'm into pumpkin beer for the season.  I also like this with fresh asparagus.

Here's my recipe for a simple creamy rotisserie chicken salad.  In fact, I just made this one this evening.  This is great for dinner and a movie. In fact, I'm watching an old classic 1936 Perry Mason movie.

Ingredients

2-3 cups rotisserie chicken, cut up, skin and all

1 small onion, chopped fine

1 or 2 stalks celery, chopped fine

1/2 cup light mayo

2-3 Tbs light ranch salad or sour cream

1 tsp dried dill (flakes or seed)

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in bowl.  Add more ranch dressing if you want a wetter salad.  Personally, I make mine with lots of Ranch dressing  You could add walnuts or crunchy apple chunks. I also love this with chopped avocado and crispy  turkey bacon.