BEST CHICKEN SALAD with GRAPES AND PECANS How to make / Step by Step ❤

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hi everybody i'm rachel from rachel cooks with love in today's video i'm going to be making a delicious chicken salad now in this chicken salad i'll be putting in some delicious red grapes some dried cranberries and a lot of other good stuff now this chicken salad is something that i love to make and keep in the refrigerator because there are times when i'm out running an errand and if my ron gets home from golfing it's ready to go he can fix himself a sandwich and i don't have to be stressed out when i'm out there and i know you're gonna love it because it's easy and it is delicious now i will be posting all the ingredients right here on the screen with the amount so you'll know exactly what i used and how much and i'm also going to put it below in the description box so let's get started now i'm going to be using my dutch oven i'm going to set my heat on high now i'm gonna put in my chicken but before i put in my chicken i'm just gonna cut the chicken breasts in half like this just so they don't take so long you know because by the time they boil from the inside the outside can be overcooked so i like to cut them down into strips like this just to give it a little help speed up things a little bit like that now i'm going to cover them up with water like this just enough to where they're submerged under water that's good i'm gonna put in some peppercorns i'm gonna put in a few pieces of onion a few leafy pieces of celery like this and a little salt now you don't want to overcook your chicken you need to be very careful with that because if you overcook your chicken it'll get really dry and you don't want dried chicken in your chicken salad so i'm going to wait until the water comes up to a boil and as soon as it comes up to a rapid boil i will lower the temperature down to a simmer anywhere between 15 and 18 minutes just until the chicken has lost its pink now as you can see i went ahead and moved the dutch oven over here to the other side because i'm going to be using this other burner up in the front now i'm not going to be using this water as a broth because i've got plenty of broth in the freezer and in the refrigerator but i just put in a few things just so that it's not just plain salty water but i do like to remove this protein that forms up at the top anyway even though i'm not going to be using the broth now as you can see the water is starting to come up to a nice boil and i'm going to go ahead and lower it at this time and just bring it down to a low simmer just so that it doesn't cook so quick just like that i put it down at a low simmer now so i'm gonna let it continue boiling like that until all the pink color is gone so while my chicken is boiling over here i'm gonna go ahead and roast my pecans here on the stove top so i've got some melted butter right here i almost melted now you don't want your heat too high because you don't want to burn them you just want it nice and warm enough to where it'll roast them but not burn them so i'm going to go ahead and put my pecans in here now i'm going to put in a little bit of salt just a little bit like this so i'm going to be tossing them around like this just until they get to a really nice deeper color but you don't want to burn them so you want to be careful as you can see see the butter is bubbling like that when i'm well coated with the butter for just about three or four minutes until they get to a deeper color so my pecans are nice and toasty i'm going to go ahead and remove them i'm going to put them right here on this plate that i have lined with a paper towel just like that so they can cool oh and they smell so delicious and that's it just like that so i'm going to let them sit here for a little while until they get nice and cool before i chop them up so it's been about 17 minutes i'm gonna go ahead and take my chicken out and once it loses its pink color you know that it's ready now as you can see my chicken is very hot so i'm going to give it a couple of minutes and then i'm going to cut them up into nice cubes now i'm cutting my chicken up into cubes like this you don't want to cut them into real big cubes but this is about the right size see now it really helps when you keep an eye on your chicken just to make sure that it's poached just perfectly because it's so tender when you feel it it's just so tender look at that it's just literally falling apart and that's the kind of chicken you want when you're making a chicken salad because if you overcook your chicken it's going to get real dry just like dry hay and you don't want a chicken salad like that you want it to be really tender and just perfect just like this so i'm gonna go ahead and let it sit here for a little bit while i get my other things ready now i'm going to go ahead and cover it up so that it doesn't lose its moisture because you want to keep it nice and moist and i'll leave just a little end open so it can breathe but you don't want to leave it like that because it'll dry up always have your chicken covered while it's cooling down and i'm going to clean up my area and get ready for the next step i'm going to start out with my wet ingredients now in this bowl i'm going to go ahead and put in my nail now i like to use mayonnaise there's something about the taste of the real mayonnaise so i'm going to put my mayonnaise in here i've got about two tablespoons of cream cheese right here and these are room temperature so i'm gonna put my cream cheese in there and i'm gonna put in a little bit of honey because the honey just gives it a nice sweet taste and it goes really well with the mayonnaise and the cream cheese just like that and then i'm going to put some dijon mustard now i'm using the dijon mustard because this also balances real nice with the sweetness of the honey and with the mayonnaise and the cream cheese it's just delicious so i'm going to put in about one tablespoon just like that i want to get every cup and i'm going to whip it up really good so that it'll all come in together really well [Music] [Music] so now that i've got it mixed in together really well i'm going to put it into this big bowl now the reason i mix it up real good with a mixer is because you know if you put your chicken in the big bowl and then you dump in your pecans and then you put in your cranberries and you put in celery and all these other things and then you just drop in you know your mayonnaise and all well now when you mix it around you're just gonna really shred up all that chicken and the mayonnaise and your cream cheese will not be evenly distributed so that's why i like to get this all real nice and smooth and then i put in the rest of the ingredients so i'm going to cut up my celery now you can cut it just as small as you want now i do like the celery in some pretty nice little pieces not real small but not too big either just about like this see now if you don't like it you can leave them out but all these ingredients i think is what makes this chicken salad just so good now as i was saying about my chicken salad you know my ron likes to go play golf and he goes a couple of days out of the week and usually i am always home because i have so many projects going on now cooking is not the only thing that i like to do i like to do other things like i love to sew you know i make all my aprons and i also like to sketch i like to paint i like to do other things and i like to do that when i have some free time but there are times when i need to go run errands you know and do something so i usually go when my run is off golfing but i worry about him you know when he's out golfing i'm like he's gonna come home and if i'm not there you know he usually comes home about after lunch he leaves early in the morning so i'm thinking well he's gonna come home and he's not gonna have something to eat and he's one of these that likes his three meals a day you know so i always make sure that i have chicken salad because with it by having chicken salad ready in the refrigerator i don't have to worry when i'm out there i know that once he gets home he'll fix himself a sandwich and that'll hold him at least until supper time so that's one of the reasons why i love to have chicken salad i also love to have tuna salad you know all these are good to have for i call them like fillers in between you know that's the reason why i always have a chicken salad you know at home so here's my celery i'm gonna go ahead and put it right here into my bowl just like this set it right there on the side i'm going to start with my onions now i'm going to use these green scallions because i love the taste you can use your red onions you can use just regular white or sweet onions but i do like these green onions because of the taste that it gives the salad see i'm just going to cut these up into little pieces like this and i'm going to go ahead and use most of the green part also now if you don't want to use onions because i know there's a lot of people that don't like onion you know they'll be like oh i don't like any onions and anything my kids don't like it you can just use chives you know the chives are are very mild but they do give just enough taste in there without giving it much of an onion taste so you could try that now lots of times i use the white of these onions and i save the green so you can also just chop a little bit of this and use this only if you don't like onions you know there's just different things that you can do so here are my onions see i'm gonna go ahead and put them right here into my bowl like that just like that i've got my pecans i'm gonna go ahead and give them a light chop see how they turned out oh my gosh they are delicious you know you can even fix them roast them like this you know you can sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar with a butter and then you can just snack on them you know whenever you want to have something to snack on you can do it like that these are way better than store-bought but i'd rather do them myself because i can smell them they just smell wonderful and they taste delicious so i like to make them from scratch so i've got my pecans nice and chopped as you can see see so i'm going to go ahead and put them right here just like that see now i'm going to put in my cranberries right here these are the ones i'm going to be using now if you saw my dressing my thanksgiving dressing you'll see that i use these that say 50 less sugar now i have these two these are the original ones and i use these for other things but for this salad i like to use the ones that say 50 less sugar and it just balances that out perfect but you can give them a try and see which ones you like best i'm going to put in about half a cup in here right there that's about half a cup right there so now i'm going to cut up my my grapes now i'm going to use the red grapes you can use a dark kind of black like grapes they're sweet and delicious too but i've noticed that these are just a pinch sweeter and i like that but you can use the green grapes or you can use the dark black grapes or you can use these just be sure to get the seedless now i like to cut them in half and then just again like that you see because if you cut them in half i just think that's way too big and when you make a sandwich the pieces are too big so i like to cut them into fours like that so i cut them like this and then like that see into fours and then it's a perfect size to go into your chicken salad when you make a sandwich now i do want about a cups worth of these grapes so i'm going to start putting them in here so that i can have that exact amount that i need but you can put in as many as as you want to put in here i can't give an exact amount when i'm making this chicken salad because i always use three chicken breasts but sometimes the chicken breasts are about that size and sometimes they come a lot bigger and if they're a lot bigger you know it takes maybe a fourth more of something or another handful of something else so i'm giving you just an approximate but at the very end i'm going to give you the exact amount i usually use about a cup of grapes cut up but we'll see that's enough or i might have to put a few more now i've got a heaping cup right here and i'm gonna go ahead and put my grapes in here see just like that now i've got one lemon i'm gonna go ahead and zest about half of the lemon in here because i think the lemon zest is just so good in the chicken salad it's so citrusy you know it smells wonderful and it also tastes real good in here and that's good right there i'm going to use the juice of half a lemon put that juice in there and that's about one tablespoon of lemon juice i'm gonna put in a fourth teaspoon i'm gonna put in a four teaspoon of garlic powder some pepper about half a teaspoon of pepper and i'm going to put in some salt that's about half a teaspoon of salt right there now i'm going to bring it all in together like this see oh so now that i brought it all in together and i've tasted it and it's just so perfect i'm gonna go ahead and put in my chicken now my chicken is totally cool i had it covered up just so that it wouldn't dry up i'm going to go ahead and add my chicken to the bowl and i'm going to toss it around until it all comes in together now if you feel that you want to add a pinch more of anything you can go ahead and do that but usually this is all perfect for me as far as the measurements are concerned but it's up to you you see see how it's all coming in together just so perfect and you can still see the nice cubes of chicken because you didn't tear them up stirring them around too much from the beginning you put them in at the very end so they keep their shape and then your chicken salad not only will it taste delicious but it's going to be really pretty too see how the chicken just looks so pretty in its little cubes i'm going to go ahead and clean up my area and get started on making my sandwich so i've got my croissants nice and warm we're going to go ahead and slice one just about like this in the middle [Music] you can use any type of bread that you want now you can use a rye bread you can use a dark pumpernickel bread or just plain white bread whatever kind of bread you like that they're just so delicious in these croissants just like that so now we're going to put our sandwich together and i'll put some grapes right here on the side and some chips we like ours with potato chips but you can have anything that you want this is our chicken salad sandwich now for the taste test [Music] oh my goodness it's delicious you know the sweetness of the grapes the cranberries and the honey balances out so beautifully with the lemon juice the dijon mustard and the other ingredients so it's a perfect balance it's super delicious so this is my chicken salad with grapes and pecans if you like my video give me a thumbs up send me a comment and tell me what you think share with your friends thank you
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Channel: Rachel cooks with love ❤
Views: 1,952,967
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: BEST CHICKEN SALAD with GRAPES AND PECANS How to make / Step by Step, Chicken Salad with grapes, Chicken salad
Id: 1I-CtiOEVAE
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 20min 44sec (1244 seconds)
Published: Thu Feb 04 2021
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