Fall Chicken Salad

How much food do you throw away each week? It's a struggle even for me to make sure I use everything before it goes off and I know many different ways to use each ingredient in my fridge.

I do my best to meal plan, buy only what we need and stick to making what I planned. Inevitably, life happens and I’m too tired to cook one night and we order takeout or I have half packages and ingredients leftover from recipes and don't use them up before they go bad.

I hate food waste, but it happens almost every week.

Meal plans have never felt like the right solution to the problem. When life happens, I'm left with ingredients that I don't use. It occurred to me that I can at least lessen the problem by offering you guys companion recipes. Dishes that are meant to use up some of the leftover ingredients from another, making your kitchen run just a little more efficiently.

Today I give you my Fall Chicken Salad. If you make the chicken soup I posted Monday, you're going to have two lovely poached chicken breasts leftover. Here is the perfect way to use them.

Fall Chicken Salad

2 poached chicken breasts

2 celery sticks

1 small green apple

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt

1/4 cup golden raisins, chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon

Shred the chicken breasts by hand into smaller sections and then chop into small pieces and place in a large bowl. Two breasts from a 5 lb chicken should yield you just under four cups of chopped chicken. If you have significantly more or less, adjust the quantities of the other ingredients. Chop the celery and apples into a small dice and add to the bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Check seasoning and add more salt if desired.

*If you’re using the chicken salad to make sandwiches, I recommend adding a little more mayonnaise so it doesn’t seem dry on the bread.

Companions – Cold Fighting Chicken Soup