chipotle chicken salad — Honey Street

cold hands, warm chipotle chicken-y heart. or something.

this recipe came to me after a sad string of eating cold, leftover chicken hovered over my kitchen sink not even bothering to heat any of it up even though the stove is right there. i don’t have qualms about cold food, but sometimes leftovers make me feel as though i’m a glutton for punishment because it’s never really as good the second (or third) time, and very rarely do i think ‘oh great, indistinguishable chicken from… a week ago? I hope?’

this chicken salad is really a bracing-for-impact sort of thing, when i will inevitably eat cold chicken right from the fridge in a flurry of needing lunch/a snack/ somethinganything in my body right now. future me thanks current me for making it 100x more delicious this way.

you can play around with the fixins’ however you like here; if you’re paleo, ditch the corn! if you don’t mind regular mayo (I do) and don’t want to buy paleo mayo (it is not cheap,) do your thing! dunk some chips into this baby! pack a winter picnic! anything and everything goes here because it’s seriously easy and seriously delicious.

chipotle chicken salad
makes 4-6 servings
prep time: 5 minutes
cook time: 25 minutes

for the chicken salad:
3 chicken breasts, poached and shredded*
2c fresh spinach, torn into small pieces
1c corn (frozen + thawed works here)
1c grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2c red onion, small diced
1/2c fresh parsley, chopped
juice of 1 lime
big pinch of salt
1tsp avocado or olive oil

for the chipotle mayo:
1c paleo mayo
1 chipotle in adobo sauce
1tbsp honey
juice from 1 lime
1tsp garlic powder
1/2tsp cumin
1tsp salt

blend the ingredients for the mayo until smooth and incorporated, then set aside.

heat the oil in a skillet over medium, and ‘toast’ the corn until golden on all sides, about 5 minutes. then, place all the ingredients for the chicken salad in a large bowl. give it a good stir, then add the mayo and stir until everything is coated.

serve this cold, with a side of chips, as an appetizer; everything goes, party people.

*you can also use a rotisserie chicken here if you don’t want to mess with poaching.
*got leftover chipotles in adobo sauce? you can toss them in the freezer and thaw them out whenever you need one (because you always only need one.) i like to pack them individually to make life even easier.