Sweet & Fiery Summer Chicken Salad

This sweet & spicy summer chicken salad can be served on a lightly toasted & buttered roll with a piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato, or on top of lightly dressed salad greens.

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Sweet & Fiery Summer Chicken Salad

This sweet & spicy summer chicken salad can be served on a lightly toasted & buttered roll with a piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato, or on top of lightly dressed salad greens.

Ingredients

• 6 boneless (skinless chicken thighs)
• ¼ cup unsweetened Greek yogurt (2-5% fat)
• ½ clove garlic (finely minced)
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
• 1 jalapeno (seeds & stems included, finely minced)
• ½ red onion ( small dice)
• 1 stalk celery (small dice)
• ¼ green bell pepper (small dice)
• 3 eggs (hardboiled and chopped)
• 2 Zest of limes
• 2 Juice of limes
• 3 Tbsp dried raisins (plumped for 15 minutes in hot water and drained )
• 2 oz of fresh grapes (cut in quarters )
• 2 oz of fresh pineapple (small dice)
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp Sweet & Spicy Tabasco sauce
• Salt & freshly-ground black pepper (to taste)

Instructions 

• The day before you make the chicken salad, cut the boneless, skinless chicken thighs into ½” pieces.
• Season the chicken with salt.
• Combine the Greek yogurt, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, ground cayenne pepper, minced jalapeno, and diced red onion together with the chicken thigh pieces to coat the chicken completely.
• Set aside in the fridge to marinate overnight.
• The following day, set oven to 475F.
• Lay your marinated chicken pieces on parchment paper on a sheet tray and evenly disperse the pieces.
• Allow the chicken to rest for roughly 30 minutes to get closer to room temperature.
• Bake in the oven at 475F until the chicken pieces take on color and the pieces are fully cooked through, roughly 20-25 minutes.
• Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to cool.
• After the chicken has cooled for 5 minutes, transfer to a bowl and place bowl in refrigerator until chicken is fully cooled.
• Remove chicken from fridge and dice into smaller pieces.
• Combine diced chicken with diced celery, green bell pepper, hard-boiled eggs, lime zest & lime juice, raisins, grapes, pineapple, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and Tabasco Sweet & Spicy sauce and stir to coat everything evenly.
• Taste and adjust flavor with salt & freshly-ground ground black pepper.

Notes

The recipe also works wonderfully if served with lettuce leaves as small, bite-sized lettuce wraps.
Don’t worry if you don’t have the Tabasco Sweet & Spicy Sauce. It is one of their sauces that is worth trying if you haven’t seen it before. Their Sweet & Spicy sauce has a more Asian-inspired flavor profile than their other sauces and works wonderfully in this recipe.