The main inspiration for this recipe is my friend’s mom’s recipe for chicken salad sandwiches. Apparently she roasts the chicken all day and man.. the way it’s seasoned (there’s a little bit of curry powder or SOMETHING) is SO good. The meat is so finely minced that it’s basically a spread. OH MAN it’s so good. Plus I don’t know why but I’ve never thought about making chicken salad sandwiches NOT from a can.
I wanted to do something similar but not exclusively for chicken salad sandwiches (although that is ultimately what I made). I had a bag of frozen chicken breasts from Trader Joe’s that I needed to get rid of, and since I’m impatient, I stuck them into the oven @ 350 degrees instead of thawing them out. After about 10 minutes, the chicken breasts were thawed and ready to season.
- Garlic salt
- Chili powder
- Cumin
- Curry powder (not too much because curry is very strong)
- Oregano
I covered the sheet with foil & popped these into the oven for another 20 to 25 minutes until fully cooked. In retrospect, I think I should have lowered the temperature and cooked it longer so it’d be more tender. Oh well.
While the chicken finishes cooking, prepare the rest of the dish for the chicken salad.
- Diced shallots
- Minced garlic
- Chopped fresh thyme
Pour evoo and let the flavors mingle.
After the chicken is done cooking, take 2 forks and shred them. This was a PAINSTAKING process for me (the entire time, I kept thinking about Dave Chappelle’s Samuel L. Jackson beer skit — “Made painstakingly by ME, Samuel L. Jackson!!!”). Mix the shredded chicken with the shallots-garlic-thyme mixture and let it cool down.
Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to keep the chicken versatile so I didn’t add anything else to the whole batch. When I made myself a chicken salad sandwich, however, I took maybe 1/3 cup of the shredded chicken and mixed it with some mayo and put it on a bed of lettuce (on which I trickled some of my Gwyneth-vinaigrette) on some toasted bread.
I tried it with some mustard and mayo but I don’t think the mustard went too well with the curry powder. Because there’s so much flavor packed into the chicken, it might be best to keep the mayo as is.
I also had some of the chicken on a bed of leafy greens with sliced cucumbers, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, onions and the Gwyneth-vinaigrette. SO good.
$ breakdown:
- $9 – entire bag of frozen chicken breasts (or maybe it was $12, I don’t really remember) and I used about 7 pieces out of 20 or something
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