Chicken Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Thyme

Chicken Salad Recipe, No mayo chicken salad recipe, Chicken Salad with thyme recipe, chicken salad with sun-dried tomatoes recipe

Chicken Salad with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Thyme

I’ve decided I’m finished with whining about how hot it is outside. Everyone knows how hot it is outside; everyone is 1: sick of hearing about it. 2: sick of it BEING hot. So, rather than whine (any more)…here’s a solution to beat the heat. Chicken Salad with Sun-dried Tomatoes and Thyme. Using a store-bought, pre-cooked rotisserie chicken! AND…no mayonnaise!

I’ve posted before about how I used to make the lunches for our guided trips and schools. Prior to me providing the lunches, the guides were responsible for putting together this meal themselves.

They had guidelines about what to serve, but they would buy the components they served. It was a while before I got wind of the fact that, despite said guidelines, one of them served saltine crackers, Vienna sausages (straight out of the can) and sardines as lunch – with no utensils. Needless to say, I was thoroughly appalled.

Yes, I promptly took over the task of food preparation. Because I didn’t particularly trust the guides and instructors to keep food properly chilled (need I say more – see above), I wanted the chicken salad to be mayonnaise-less; this is one of the recipes I came up with for the lunches we served.

Since stream-side eating can be messy, I decided to put the chicken salad in hollowed out mini baguettes (an idea I completely, shamelessly, stole from a local inn). In this case, I’ve used mini boule that I’ve crisped in the oven, allowed to cool, then cut in half and hollowed. No waste here, I save the insides to make bread crumbs for other dishes.

Also, I cheated here…I bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery. I can’t stand to heat up the kitchen at the moment.

I no longer prepare the meals for our schools, but I still make this chicken salad. I hope you’ll try it sometime.

Chicken Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Thyme

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No mayonnaise chicken salad, flavored with sun-dried tomatoes and thyme...and a hint of booze.

Author: The Saucy Southerner

Recipe type: Salad

Ingredients

4 cups skinless, boneless chicken, cooked, cubed
½ tablespoon butter
½ cup onion, diced
½ cup celery, diced
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, diced
1½ ounces dry sherry
4 ounces cream cheese
4 ounces sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Place the cooked and cubed chicken into a large bowl.
In a skillet, melt the butter.
Add the onions, celery and tomatoes; saute for 2 minutes*
Add the sherry and stir.**
Add the cream cheese, sour cream and thyme leaves and stir until the cream cheese is completely melted.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Pour over the chicken in the bowl, cover and refrigerate. ***

Notes

* I found that customers really didn't want to have onion breath for the rest of the day following lunch, by lightly sauteing the vegetables you'll remove the complete rawness from them, while retaining the crunch.

**You could us a Marsala, or a dry white wine, I really prefer the sherry. Also...never, ever use what is labeled "cooking sherry" as it is salted beyond any recognition. Only use a wine you would drink, when cooking.

***Refrigeration at this stage is important. You need to allow the cream cheese to re-firm.

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