Chicken salad is a pretty good dish to have on hand for lunch when friends are coming over. It's hearty without being too filling for a simple lunch, and it shows a bit more effort than slapping some cheese slices on bread and calling it a day as we might when dining alone. The only downside is that chicken salad calls for a lot of mayo, which is not very heart-healthy. We had heard that Greek yogurt can often make a good substitute for mayo, but we don't love the taste of Greek yogurt on its own so we were always a bit skeptical. But it was worth trying it in chicken salad at least once, and it actually wound up pleasantly surprising us.
One thing that may have helped the cause is that we seasoned the chicken itself very well. Rather than just picking up a rotisserie chicken, we baked a package of chicken tenders sprinkled generously with this AMAZING spice rub from Whole Foods: Jake's Grillin' Poultry Rub . (This rub is such a great blend of spices, including COFFEE, that we've actually taken to putting it on our roasted vegetables as well!)
Once the chicken was fully cooked, we cut it into bite-sized pieces and added some sweet grapes for contrast.
In a separate bowl, we mixed a single-serve container of plain Greek yogurt with a squirt of Dijon mustard and a dash of dill. Keeping it separate allowed for tasting and tweaking as necessary. Once the mix tasted more like dressing and less like yogurt, we combined it with the chicken.
The tartness of the Dijon/yogurt combo still seemed a bit strong, so we cut half an apple into chunks to add some crunch and sweetness. And with that magic combination, the chicken salad was pretty yummy!
We'll be the first to admit it obviously did not taste exactly like mayo. That would be weird. But the taste is close enough that we will not mind making this a regular substitution in the name of keeping things healthy!
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