Chicken Salad

Today I wanted to make some chicken salad to put into the whole wheat flatbread I made the other day. Talk about a delicious combo! Chicken salad is so easy to make and it's nice to make as much as you want or need.  And you can add a variety of tasty things to it to suit your desires. This particular time I added celery and onion for crunch, a chopped up apple for a taste of sweet, and added a few peanuts for extra crunch and flavor just prior to serving. But you can change it up by including a different variety of apple or grapes, cashews or almonds, or go for the nothing-added version if that's what you prefer.  Have fun playing around with this recipe--you just can't go wrong!

Ingredients:

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or whatever chicken you have on hand)
Mayonnaise
Celery, chopped (optional)
Onions, chopped (optional, or may use onion powder in place of fresh)
Apple, chopped (or grapes, or whatever fruit you wish)
Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
Nuts--any variety. **Note that you do not want to add the nuts to the chicken salad mixture unless you don't plan on having leftovers. The nuts have a tendency to get soft if they sit in the mixture for any length of time. It doesn't change the flavor, but I prefer them crunchy.

Start out by cooking your chicken. I usually boil a large pot of the boneless skinless variety on the stove.

Once the chicken is cooked through, you'll want to shred it. Up until recently, I used the 2-fork shredding method. Then my friend told me about this brilliant idea: place the cooked chicken (or any kind of boneless meat you may be working with for a particular recipe) in your stand mixer bowl and use the cookie paddle attachment to shred the chicken.  It works PERFECTLY and you don't have to wait for the chicken to cool down a bit before you can work with it!

Once the chicken is shredded, you can go ahead and start adding whatever you want to it. I tossed in my veggies and fruit first.

Next, add the mayo and whatever spices you are using.

Finally, serve it up on your favorite bread (or serve without bread!). Go ahead and add some lettuce or spinach if you want to sneak in some extra veggies.