Chicken salad with grapes is fun twist on a classic chicken salad recipe. It is made with chunks of chicken, crisp apples and celery, juicy grapes, dried cranberries, and walnuts tossed in a creamy sweet and tangy dressing! There’s a little of everything in every bite!
This easy chicken salad recipe is not your ordinary chicken salad! In fact, you’d think I’ve never eaten a traditional chicken salad by the avocado chicken salad, curried chicken salad, and cranberry almond chicken salad I have on my site!
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Best Chicken Waldorf Salad with Walnuts
This grape chicken salad is a longtime classic recipe combining celery, apples, nuts, and grapes with the chicken tossed in a homemade creamy dressing. It’s a twist on Waldorf salad with chicken chicken added and it’s a new favorite of everyone I make it for!
This is such an easy recipe that comes together quickly and I love to make this recipe when I want something easy yet filling for a light lunch or quick dinner on busy weeknights. It’s also perfect to make a big batch for large group at potlucks and parties since it takes so little effort to make and everyone loves it!
Ingredients/shopping list
- Cooked chicken: I like to use baked chicken but you can also use pan seared chicken, boiled chicken, grilled chicken, canned chicken or even leftover rotisserie chicken. Any diced chicken works great!
- Red apple: I like to keep the peel on. It adds texture, color, and loads of nutrients. Core it and dice it into cubes.
- Red grapes: I use red seedless grapes and slice them in half.
- Dried cranberries: Sometimes these come coated in sugar. I prefer to avoid the added sugar, but you can certainly do as you’d like.
- Chopped walnuts: Crunchy, nutty, and fabulous and adds such a wonderful texture balance. Chopped pecans or sliced almonds are wonderful too.
- Sliced celery: Thinly sliced celery adds a refreshing crisp note to the salad.
- For the dressing: Plain yogurt, freshly squeezed lemon juice, honey, poppy seeds, salt, and black pepper.
Variations/ Substitutions
1. Use raisins instead of cranberries.
2. Swap red grapes for green grapes, if preferred. Remember green grapes are not as sweet.
3. You can use a dairy-free yogurt for the dressing.
4. Use ½ mayo or miracle whip and half plain greek yogurt or sour cream. It is so delicious and gives it a slight tang.
5. Add some fresh herbs to the salad, like fresh dill, parsley, or mint. You can even add in some chopped celery leaves for extra flavor.
6. Swap the red apples for green Granny Smith apples or use an entirely different fruit. Pears would be a great alternative!
7. Add in sliced green onions or diced sweet vidalia onions or red onion.
8. Add a tablespoon of regular mustard or dijon mustard.
9. Leave out the poppy seeds if you’d like.
Ways to Serve Chicken Salad
Enjoy eating this chicken salad as is or load it in tortilla, bulky roll, favorite sandwich bread, croissant rolls or lettuce wraps (romaine lettuce leaves are my favorite) or even served on a bed of greens.
It makes a great side dish as well as a snack when you’ve got crackers or pita chips to scoop it up. I love making chicken salad sandwiches for brunch, lunch, or even dinner!
How to Make this Grape Chicken Salad Recipe
This quite possibly could be the best chicken salad recipe you’ll ever try, so from now on, there’s no going back to the store-bought stuff!
Here’s how to make it:
Step 1: Make the dressing. In a small mixing bowl, add all of the chicken salad dressing ingredients together and mix until fully combined.
Step 2: Grab a large bowl and add the chicken, apples, grapes, celery, cranberries, and nuts.
Step 3: Pour the dressing over top of the salad ingredients and gently stir to combine. Make sure everything is coated nicely.
Step 4: Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes for the flavor to meld a bit longer. This is an optional step if you have the time!
Tips
- Shred the chicken. Some people enjoy shredded chicken instead of chopped because it allows for more of the dressing to cover more of the chicken as it gets into the nooks and crannies. My favorite way to shred is using the food processor. Just a few quick pulses and it’s perfect.
- Bake or boil boneless skinless chicken breasts for 30 minutes or until no longer pink in the center.
- Even-sized dicing. You want to make sure everything is chopped relatively the same size so that nothing overpowers each bite. Celery is a supporting character so you can slice it thin and it still works!
- For a little something extra, use toasted walnuts, toasted pecans or toasted almonds.
FAQ’s
Keep leftover chicken salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Yes and no. It does have dairy and meat in it, so it can’t be left out long at room temperature. Once everyone has been served, it is best to place it back in the refrigerator within 30 minutes.
To keep it out longer in the heat, you can place the bowl inside a larger bowl filled with ice. It won’t last forever, but it can buy you an extra hour.
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Chicken Salad with Grapes Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups chicken cooked, shredded or diced
- 1 medium red apple cored and diced into cubes
- 1 cup red grapes sliced in half
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
- 2 stalks celery sliced thin
For the Dressing
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice fresh
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add the chicken, apples, grapes, celery, and dried cranberries walnuts.2 cups chicken, 1 medium red apple, 1 cup red grapes, ½ cup dried cranberries, ½ cup walnuts, 2 stalks celery
- In a small mixing bowl, add the dressing ingredients and mix together thoroughly.¼ cup plain yogurt, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon poppy seeds, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Pour the dressing over the ingredient in the other bowl and gently stir until they are all coated well.
- Place the chicken salad in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes if you have time for the flavors to meld together.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclosure
Nutritional facts are estimates and are provided as a courtesy to the reader. Please utilize your own brand nutritional values to double check against our estimates. Nutritional values are calculated via a third party. Changing ingredients, amounts or cooking technique will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
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