Blogger Street Café

When I was in high school, I worked (so did Harden!) at a bagel shop that made THE BEST chicken salad in Memphis. I don’t know if they were ever actually awarded that distinction, but it was a HUGE seller and seriously tasty*. Lucky for me (and you), I was able to get the recipe and it’s been a personal favorite ever since.

Since this is the first week of the LOML’s summer (permanent) vacation, we did a little meal planning on Sunday, and thought we’d whip up some of this tasty chicken salad to munch on all week.

TMF’H Chicken Salad (adapted from anonymous Bagel café)
4-5 lbs chicken breast
1 C sliced almonds
1 lb sliced (halved) grapes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder (we were out, so I used 1 tsp fresh chopped garlic)
2 tsp thyme
1 C (light) sour cream
2 C (light) mayo

So I used these five MONSTER chicken breasts (from a local meat distributor) that probably weighed about a pound each, and poached (or boiled, rather) them until they were cooked through. After letting them cool off a little bit, I chopped/shredded the chicken, and then let them cool some more.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “That is a **** ton of sour cream and mayo!!!!”

I know. It looks a little much. But here’s what I’d do. After the shredded/chopped chicken has completely cooled off, I’d mix in the sliced almonds and grapes and then combine all the other ingredients in a separate bowl. Then I’d fold in the mayo/sour cream mixture in small batches until you get the consistency you want. When you’re finished, throw it in the fridge and you’ve got chicken salad GOLD that should last you (at least!) a week.

In addition to having this for lunch most of this week, we had this for dinner with the LOML’s homemade pita chips and organic baby carrots (on sale @ Publix). The LOML can make some mean homemade pita chips.

* For comparisons sake, this is probably closest to Birmingham’s O’Carr’s chicken salad vs. a Zoe’s or some other sub-par version.