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This Tarragon Chicken Salad is simple, flavorful, and just might be my favorite chicken salad ever!!!
If you never buy tarragon and use it in recipes– you gotta start getting it! Tarragon is a leafy green herb widely used in French cooking (and the French know how to cook!!!) Its flavor is strong and has an anise/licorice taste to it. But don’t let that deter you if you hate licorice (because I hate licorice). Adding fresh tarragon to a dish can immediately elevate it and take something typically mundane and transform it into something magnificent. For example, this simple chicken salad is restaurant worthy– and I give all the credit to the tarragon!
If you are from Dallas or San Antonio and have had the Chicken Salad from Bird Bakery— that is where the inspiration for this salad came from. It’s savory, yet the touch of dried cranberries gives it a bit of sweetness and tartness that leaves you wanting MORE!
It may seem odd, but the key to making this salad mix so well to become so creamy and delicious is using a mixer. You can certainly just stir the heck out of it if you don’t have a mixer– but I love throwing mine in my Kitchen Aid mixer and letting that do the work. It makes the chicken shred ultra-fine and the end results are just so delicious!
Tarragon Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 4 cups cooked chicken, loosely shredded I use rotisserie chickeen
- 1/2 cup finely diced celery
- 1/2 cup finely diced sweet onion yellow onion is ok, too
- 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh tarragon leaves
- 1/2 cup unsweetened dried cranberries
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 4 tbsp homemade mayo
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- kosher salt, to taste
- black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer and using a paddle attachment, mix until very well combined and the chicken is finely shredded. Taste and add salt and pepper, according to your taste buds!*If you do not have a stand mixer no worries! Just be sure to shred the chicken really fine using your hands and then mix it *really well* when you stir to combine.
- Refrigerate to chill and serve as desired! I love to serve mine over a bed of lettuce with veggies for dipping!
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I order a $23 tarragon chicken salad with watermelon a couple of days a week b/c it is delicious. Clearly this is too much so I decided to fill my addiction at home by trying this recipe. Oh my lord, this salad (ex celery, which is the devil) + baby kale + homemade lemon dressing + cubed watermelon + feta + sliced almonds = dead, so good! I had it for two out of 3 meals today. YAAAAASSS
haha, i’m so happy to hear– Except the celery is the devil part (hahaha) i am a celery LOVER!
Soooooo good! I had to sub canola mayo and sweetened cranberries, but it was so delish!
Would this recipe freeze well?
I don’t think that recipes that use mayo freeze well.
I had some zante currants I threw in in place of the cranberries. Great substitute! This was awesome!
Any idea the nutritional information for this? I’m mostly curious how many calories are in a serving.
It’s delicious!!
This is DELICIOUS! I love the finely shredded style at Chicken Salad Chick, but have had trouble replicating it. I also HATE shredding chicken, so this is an amazing hack that will be helpful for many recipes.
Wow wow wow! This was SO good, Alex! The tarragon adds such an interesting flavor and everything works together well. I’m not sure serves 4 people is accurate though because my husband and I could eat this in one sitting between the two of us haha. I will practice self restraint and save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch ;). Thanks as always for an amazing and creative recipe!
loved this so much!!! added to the lunch rotation for sure. thanks, alex!
This is so delish and comes together quickly! Will be going in the regular rotation!
This was my first time making chicken salad and my husband and I are obsessed!! We have made it three weeks in a row. We serve it over spinach with Simple Mills crackers. Or we scoop it up right out of the container 🙂 Insanely delicious!!