Chicken Salad Lettuce Cups

Judith Hannemann — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 23:00:30 +0000

A non mayonnaise-based herb dressing makes this chicken salad special. It’s the perfect hot weather dinner or lunch.

Chicken Salad With A Twist

If you’re looking for a chicken salad that’s a bit out of the ordinary, this may be the recipe you’re looking for.

First of all, this is not a mayonnaise-based dressing. It’s also chock full of flavor because of fresh herbs–one I just love with chicken.

The salad also has interesting textural differences. One is the choice of salad greens and the other is seeds. To pull it all together, there’s a hint of bacon too if you want it. While I love bacon, I decided to leave it out of this, but the choice is up to you whether to use it or not.

A Cup Of Lettuce

Ideally, the chicken salad should be nestled in a lettuce leaf that forms a cup.

This recipe originally came from Mary Berry so it used British ingredients. She used little gem lettuce and the best way I can describe this is that it’s like a midget romaine. You could use romaine if you wish because it does have the right shape for this but it’s large. Therefore, you’d have to plan that one leaf filled with the chicken salad is one serving.

Instead of romaine, I opted for Boston lettuce. While is not as firm as romaine or little gem, it’s the proper size and the leaves form a natural cup shape.

The addition of a small amount of arugula (aka rocket) adds another textural layer and a deep earthy flavor. Arugula is my favorite salad green since I find it’s taste very interesting.

Tangy Dressing

Personally, I love mayonnaise. However, not everyone does so here’s a salad dressing that doesn’t contain any!

The base of the dressing, if you didn’t already guess, is plain yogurt. I used a full-fat plain regular yogurt, but I imagine you can use Greek yogurt as well. In fact, it may be a better choice since it’s not so liquidy.

The very best part of this dressing is the herb flavoring–tarragon. Please use fresh tarragon as it makes all the difference. Chicken pairs so well with it’s taste too. If you haven’t tried it, please do–with any chicken recipe. Try my 20-minute chicken in tarragon butter sauce and you’ll see how wonderful it is!

The Recipe

Print Recipe Add to Recipe Box