Favorite Apple Chicken Salad

Last week of September. The kids at the daycare are in full fall unit mode: we are doing apples this week and next week we will do pumpkins and the week after that will be leaves, which is ambitious in Alabama where the leaves do not turn dramatically until November, but we work with what we have and we make construction paper versions of the rest. Three-year-olds do not need real maple trees to love autumn. They just need orange paint and permission.

I made an apple cake this week, the old-fashioned kind with chunks of apple in the batter and a brown sugar crumble on top. I used three different varieties from the grocery store because I could not decide: one tart, one sweet, one in between. The combination worked well. The cake came out dense and moist with pockets of soft apple throughout and the crumble on top stayed crispy even after a day, which is the crumble's main job.

I have also been working on a collard greens recipe I can call my own. Gloria's method is the foundation: salt pork or smoked turkey neck, long braise with onion and garlic and chicken broth, apple cider vinegar at the end. I have been adding a small amount of red pepper flakes and a splash of hot sauce and a tablespoon of brown sugar that I think deepens the pot likker in a way that is mine rather than hers. She tasted it on Sunday and said what did you do to these. I told her. She said try less sugar next time. I said yes ma'am. She said but otherwise right. I am counting that.

After buying three different apple varieties for that cake and only using about half of each, I had a small pile of fruit left on the counter with no clear destination — which is how I ended up leaning back into this apple chicken salad I have been making for a few years now. It felt right for the week: something crisp and a little sweet, no oven required, and a nice counterpoint to all the brown sugar and warm spice I had already been working with. Apple week at the daycare and apple week in my kitchen both needed a savory landing place, and this salad is it.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 cups cooked chicken breast, diced or shredded
1 large crisp apple (such as Honeycrisp or Fuji), cored and diced small
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Butter lettuce or croissants, for serving

Instructions

Prep the apple. Dice the apple into small, uniform pieces (about 1/2 inch). Toss immediately with the lemon juice in a large bowl to prevent browning.
Combine the base. Add the diced chicken and sliced celery to the bowl with the apple. Stir to distribute evenly.
Dress the salad. Add the mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. Stir until everything is well coated. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Add crunch and sweetness. Fold in the toasted pecans and dried cranberries gently so the nuts stay crisp.
Serve. Spoon onto butter lettuce leaves for a light lunch, or pile onto toasted croissants for something more substantial. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to two days (add nuts just before serving if making ahead).

Nutrition (per serving)

Favorite Apple Chicken Salad — The Apple Week That Kept on Giving