Recipe: Avocado Chicken Salad

Note: From Serious Eats blog... Looks interesting... maybe worth a try?

Serious Eats: Recipes

Healthy & Delicious: Avocado Chicken Salad
Posted by Kristen Swensson, May 4, 2009

As part of my life’s work to eradicate it from the face of the earth, I’m forever in search of salads with no mayonnaise. Egg salad, macaroni salad, potato salad – all too often, their otherwise delicious ingredients are drenched in Hellmann’s, rendering them fairly unhealthy, somewhat unattractive, and to me at least, completely revolting.

That’s why, when I find a recipe like Mrs. Micah’s Avocado Chicken Salad, I’m quick to jump on it, lest the computer gods steal it away like so many accidentally unsaved grad school papers. I made the dish (note: with some changes) the day I first saw it (note: yesterday), and have been high on it ever since (note: 17 hours as of noon).

Aside from its bright, guacamole-tinged flavor, the salad is wonderfully moist without being heavy. It derives much of that from avocado, tomato, and pan-cooked chicken thighs, which add juiciness and only a little fat. A touch of cilantro and lime seal the deal, leaving you with a smile on your face, a spring in your step, and a stellar, mayo-less chicken salad recipe in your repertoire.

A word about chicken thighs: while chicken breast is the fallback poultry of perpetually dieting cooks everywhere (self included), boneless, skinless chicken thighs are only a tad fattier and much, much tastier. If you can find them on sale, stock up and freeze for future use.

Avocado Chicken Salad
- serves 4 -

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, filleted
Kosher salt and fresh black pepper
1 Hass avocado, chopped
1 large beefsteak or slicing tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 bunch scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
1 lime

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high. While oil is heating, salt and pepper both sides of the chicken. Add chicken to pan and sear 4 or 5 minutes per side, until browned and just cooked through. Remove chicken from pan and let sit for 10 minutes.

2. While chicken is cooling, combine avocado, tomato, scallions, and cilantro in a bowl. Then cut the lime into approximate halves, with one slightly bigger than the other. Squeeze larger half over ingredients in bowl. Stir to combine.

3. Once fairly cooled, chop chicken into 1/2-inch chunks. Squeeze remaining lime over chunks and add to avocado mixture. Stir until combined. (Avocado should cover everything, but shouldn’t itself be annihilated.) Salt and pepper to taste.