What Goes With Chicken Salad? Get The Best Serving Suggestions Now
Chicken salad is a year-round favorite in my house, but I often find myself wanting to make it in the summer more than any other time of year. When I make chicken salad, however, I always have the same question: What goes with chicken salad?
Choosing sides to complement a dish like chicken salad can be difficult, but there’s actually so many great options! Let’s go through some of the best options, and then you can share your favorites with me!
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What Kind Of Side Dishes Work Best?
For many people, cold salads like chicken salad, pasta salad, potato salad, and tuna salad remind them of a basic lunch or a picnic. So, the side dishes that come to mind are usually other picnic-style side dishes!
Consider common cold sides like fruit and pasta salad to go with your chickens salad.
Also, remember that the chicken salad is very heavy in protein, so you’ll want to balance that out with vegetable and carbohydrate elements. Some options include:
- Cucumber salad
- Coleslaw
- Potato salad
- Raw fruits and vegetables
There are so many options, however, that I’d like to share some specific side dishes that I think work well with any chicken salad! Keep reading to find out what they are!
Warm Up With Toasty Vegetables!
If you want to move away from cold sides, try grilling some vegetables such as corn, asparagus, or eggplant. Serve these alongside your chicken salad to add another nutritious element to the plate.
You could also serve up some raw vegetables for the added vitamin boost, however, grilling them can impart more flavor.
Spread It Out!
Three of my favorite sides to serve with chicken salad are not a singular item, but rather, a spread of items that your guests can enjoy!
Let’s look at these three options.
Toppings Spread
Try setting out a plate of lettuce leaves and tomato slices, as well as other topping like red onions, horseradish, and homemade pickles.Your guests can make their own chicken sandwiches with these toppings!
Then, if any chicken falls out of the sandwich, they can use the lettuce to make chicken lettuce wraps. Can you say yummy? This is one of my favorite ways to enjoy chicken salad!
Carbohydrate Spread
If you’ve made chicken salad, you may be wondering how you should serve it. With crackers? On buns? In a salad? There’s so many options!
What I like to do if I’m serving more than just me is to set up a spread of various carbohydrates that go well with chicken salad.
My spread usually includes:
- Bread
- Crackers
- Pita chips
- Wraps
- Gluten-free crackers
- Rolls
- Anything else I find!
Set this up so your guests can serve themselves their chicken salad with their preferred carb, and you’ll soon find that they try out more than one!
Dessert Spread
Serving a dessert spread as a side for your chicken salad is totally okay. As a picnic or lunch item, nobody will think this is odd at all.
All you need to do is start by cutting up some fresh fruit. Choose whatever is in sease. I like to go for strawberries, cantaloupe, green grapes, watermelon, and honeydew when I can find them. These fruits all have a soft sweetness and nice crispness to them that makes for a very refreshing dessert.
Then, get together a small plate of cheeses that your guests can try. You don’t have any flavors like cheese in the chicken salad, so this will help it feel like a complete, delicious meal!
Crisp It Up!
Because potato salad could almost be described as soggy, it’s great to serve alongside some crispy potato chips. I love to serve kettle chips! These healthier potato chips have a great flavor and are very crunchy.
Another option is to fry up your own potatoes to make potato chips at home! It’s simple:
- Peel and slice potatoes into paper thin slices.
- Put slices in bowl of cold water as you go.
- Drain the bowl and refill with new water.
- Add 3 tablespoons of salt and let the potatoes soak for 30 minutes.
- Drain, rinse, and drain again.
- Heat oil to 365 degrees.
- Fry potato slices in small batches.
- Once golden, remove and drain on paper towels.
- Fry the rest of the potatoes.
- Season with additional salt to taste.
That’s it! Making your own potato chips allows you to control the salt content, and you can brag about it to your friends. You know I’ve done this before!
Serve Up Some Fresh Green Beans
Because I often forget to eat enough vegetables, I love finding ways to add vegetables to my favorite dishes such as chicken salad.
Fresh green beans are a great way to do this. But you don’t have to serve them plain! Instead, mix it up by adding some flavor to your crispy beans.
First, blanch the green beans so that they are crispy. Then, heat rosemary and garlic in a pan of oil to impart the oil with the flavors. Remove the rosemary and garlic, and then add the blanches beans to warm them up. Mix in some breadcrumbs and coat the green beans in Parmesan cheese before serving.
What you will create is a wonderful, crispy side of green beans that have taken on the flavors of Parmesan, rosemary, and garlic. Delicious!
Soup Is Good, Too!
If you’re feeling like cuddling up at home, serving a nice soup with your chicken salad sandwiches is another good option.You can serve any kind of soup, whether it is cream-based or broth-based. Simply choose your favorite, and get it ready to go!
Get Ready To Serve Your Meal
Stop wondering what goes with chicken salad, and choose one of these recommended sides to put together the perfect meal. All it takes is a simple side dish to make a complete meal.
Do you have another side that you like to eat with chicken salad? Share it with us all in the comments so that we can try it to, and then share with friends who love to eat chicken salad!
