Chicken Salad - Meadow Lane Inspired

Recipe: Chicken Salad And Chicken Sandwich Recipe »

Love a classic chicken salad? This chicken salad was inspired by NYC grocery shop Meadow Lane and may just be the best ever chicken salad you've ever eaten. It's quick to make and goes well in sandwiches or as a salad on its own or scooped with crackers. Find out what the secret ingredients are that make this chicken salad so moreish!

About This Chicken Salad Inspired by Meadow Lane

Everyone loves a chicken salad sandwich like the ones at afternoon tea. I'm sharing with you an incredible recipe for chicken sandwiches using a chicken salad recipe inspired by the one that is going viral from Meadow Lane in New York City.

Chicken sandwiches are usually made with a creamy mixture of chicken breast, mayonnaise and seasonings in a soft white or brown bread buttered sandwich. For afternoon tea they will usually cut the crusts off.

But this chicken salad sandwich recipe has a bit of a twist to a typical chicken salad. It uses leeks instead of onion and a touch of horseradish cream. I promise that this is SERIOUSLY delicious! The leeks and horseradish were inspired by the Meadow Lane grocery stores chicken salad that everyone raves about. Meadow Lane is a very fancy grocery store that looks like a high end boutique and carries ready to eat items at high prices. And the addition of soft, sliced raw leeks instead of onions or chives is actually genius. Seriously, you have to try this if you're a chicken salad fan!

Video How To Make Chicken Salad

Video: How to Make the best chicken salad!

Ingredients For Chicken Salad

Chicken breast - use the breasts from a rotisserie chicken. Two full breasts plus the tenderloins and any white meat is around 320g/11.3ozs. I prefer using these to poached chicken breasts-plus it is easier!

Mayonnaise - Hellman's and Best Foods are creamy mayonnaisses. There are real differences in the tanginess of mayo and it's a personal preference but I like these brands when looking to make a creamy dressing.

Leeks - Cut off the green tops from the leeks and slice the leeks in half lengthways and wash out any dirt trapped in the outer layers of the leeks.

Celery - For crunch, make sure that the celery is finely diced, not just the little half moons.

Sour cream - Use full fat sour cream.

Garlic powder and onion powder - I like to use these in dishes where you need to disperse the flavour well like with a salad. You can find both these powders in the spice aisle. You want onion powder not onion flakes. Tip: store these in the freezer so that they don't clump-trust me on this!

Horseradish cream - I used the Masterfoods horseradish cream condiment. It actually is quite light on horseradish but it has a mild pungency which doesn't overpower the chicken.

Bread - For afternoon tea, nothing beats the supermarket square loaf or pullman loaf for softness!

Butter - Use softened, salted butter.

White pepper - I like using white pepper on chicken sandwiches. But you use black pepper if you prefer!

Tips For Making Chicken Salad and Chicken Sandwiches

1- I've tried this chicken salad with poached chicken and with leftover rotisserie chicken breasts and I've got to say the rotisserie breasts are better and more tender.

2 - My way of making chicken salad is putting everything in a mixer bowl with a beater attachment and letting the mixer do all of the work. The beater attachment breaks up the chicken and within less than 1 minute you'll have a perfectly mixed chicken salad! This is especially handy if you're making a big batch of chicken salad.

3 - Taste the salad for seasoning - depending on the rotisserie chicken and how seasoned it is, sometimes you don't need much salt or pepper.

4 - It is easier to cut the crusts off before filling the sandwiches.

5 - Make sure that the butter is soft so that it doesn't tear the bread when spreading.

6 - You can get 3 finger sandwiches out of a square or pullman bread.

7 - You can store this chicken salad in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-5 days. I don't recommend freezing chicken salad.

I've got no shortage of chickens salad or sandwiches-I absolutely love them. I've got chicken pinwheels, Bethenny's chicken salad and Cauliflower Chicken Salad.

Chicken Salad And Chicken Sandwich Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 0 minutes

Makes: 15 chicken sandwiches, around 600g of chicken salad

Ingredients Needed

• 320g/11.3ozs chicken breast from rotisserie chicken, skin off
• 200g/7oz mayonnaise
• 45g/1.6ozs leeks, white part only, sliced in half moons
• 30g/1oz celery, finely chopped
• 20g/0.7ozs sour cream
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1-2 teaspoons horseradish cream (to taste)
• Salt and white pepper

For Sandwiches

• 10 slices white or rye bread, crusts removed
• 50g/1.7ozs butter, softened

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1a MIX - Chop the chicken breasts into 4 pieces each and add to a mixer bowl along with mayonnaise, sliced leeks, diced celery, sour cream, garlic powder, onion powder and horseradish cream. Fit a beater attachment and beat for 15 seconds on low speed, then increase speed to medium high for another 30 or so seconds or until the mixture is soft and well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Step 1b THERMOMIX - Cut chicken breasts into 4 pieces each and add to TM bowl along with mayonnaise, sliced leeks, diced celery, sour cream, garlic powder, onion powder and horseradish cream. Set to turbo for 2 seconds, scrape down and repeat. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Step 2 FILL - Cut crusts off the bread and butter the bread generously. Spread 110g/4ozs of chicken filling on each sandwich and smooth over making sure to spread the edges. Cut into three fingers.

Personal Note

If I ever get to New York again I would love to go into Meadow Lane and see what they have on offer. It has been a few years since I went to America but I did recently have an American friend come over to Australia over Christmas.

I met first Tess on the Antarctic cruise a couple of years ago. She was the first person I spoke to when I went to meet the cruise group and I ended up mostly hanging out with her and the American girls for the whole cruise. They were lots of fun and would ask me lots of questions about Australia and politics. She messaged me that she was coming to Sydney along with Melbourne and Tasmania and we made plans to meet up.

Before she left, she offered to bring me some American items. There are a couple of items I really want to try - the Meadow Lane chicken salad and the Doan's coconut cake are two of them but she's in DC but these are incredibly impractical requests (imagine schlepping a chicken salad across 5 flights?). I just asked her for a bag of Hershey's cinnamon chips.

We met up with her and her partner Tom and took them to McRae Bar for drinks before stopping at Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Harry Cafe de Wheels for a pie floater. Meat pies aren't as common as sweet pies in America and Tom loves meat so this was a last minute stop. Then we took them to Osteria Russo di Russo to show them Newtown and Enmore.

And along with the cinnamon chips she also brought along this gorgeous tea towel by DC artist Marcella Kriebel that adds a really nice pop of colour in my photos and is also practical!

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