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Make this easy spicy chicken salad in 10 minutes and use it for sandwiches, on top of fresh lettuce, or with crackers!
Chicken Salad with a Spicy Kick
My original healthy chicken salad recipe just got an upgrade to satisfy the spicy team’s cravings: this epic Spicy Chicken Salad packed with flavor and a little heat thanks to the addition of Creole seasoning and hot sauce.
Creole (aka Cajun) seasoning is a staple in the South and goes on everything from grilled, baked, or roasted meats to chicken, pasta, and sauteed veggies. If it isn't available at your grocery store, you can always make your own creole seasoning blend. Trust me, you’ll use it to season everything!
What I love about this salad is not just how great it tastes. It’s a terrific meal builder for quick lunches and easy dinners you can serve with veggies, greens, crackers, tortilla chips, and the list goes on (and it gets even tastier!). Need to save time? Make it a canned chicken salad!
Ingredients
The amounts are at the end of the post, but check this list to see how simple the ingredients are. The important step is to make sure you add just the right amount of creole seasoning since this determines how spicy the chicken salad will be. Here’s what you need:
- Chicken: baked or poached chicken, rotisserie chicken; any shredded chicken you have works! Check out here how to cook chicken for chicken salad.
- Celery: the delicious crunchiness in this salad.
- Lemon: adds a fresh and citric note.
- Mayonnaise: just enough to make this salad creamy. Full-fat Greek yogurt makes a good swap.
- Salt and pepper: we don’t want to omit the classics.
- Creole Seasoning: this is what makes this salad more or less spicy. Cajun seasoning also works.
- Hot sauce: a little goes a long way!
How to Make Spicy Chicken Salad
Chop the chicken in the food processor quickly and toss it with the dressing so everything gets evenly coated. This way, each bite will have the perfect amount of spice! The two steps to make this spicy chicken salad are:
- Pulse
You want your chicken finely chopped, not a “chicken paste,” so place the meat in the food processor and pulse without turning it “on.” - Combine
Combine lemon juice, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, creole seasoning, and hot sauce in a bowl. Add the chopped chicken and celery, and toss to combine.
Watch this video to check the incredible consistency of this salad:
Want to make chicken salad in bulk to solve many meals? Amazing idea. Read here how long chicken salad lasts.
How to Serve Spicy Chicken Salad
I like to serve this recipe in all the classic ways as I do with these five chicken salad ideas, but that’s not all! This Spicy Chicken Salad goes great with all things crunchy, like baby carrots, on top of crackers, or with tortilla chips. It's delish! And what about serving this salad in a warm croissant? I can’t even type it without start drooling!
Spicy Chicken Salad
Watch how it’s made:
Ingredients
- 1 whole roasted chicken, meat off
- ½ cup celery, finely chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- ⅓ to ½ cup mayonnaise
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon Creole Seasoning
- 2 dashes of hot sauce
Instructions
- Put chicken meat in a food processor and pulse a few times to roughly chop. Continue pulsing for about 30 seconds until the chicken is finely chopped. *If you turn "on" the food processor, your chicken will become a "paste" instead, use the pulse method until it's very finely chopped.
- In a bowl, combine lemon juice, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, creole seasoning, and hot sauce. Blend well.
- Toss chicken into the bowl, combine a few times with a spatula and add finely chopped celery.
Mary Ann says
Ok, so I made this spicy chicken salad to fill sandwiches and everyone loved it so much!! I needed to come back and thank you for the recipe!
Pamela H Cadd says
Laura, can you give us a measurement for the chicken? I like to use packaged rotisserie chicken as a convenient starter for this kind of recipe, but I don’t know how much would equal one chicken.
I cook with my 15-year-old granddaughter, and when she was in fourth grade we started using your recipes to pack her school lunches. We use the Paprika app, and when we put one of your recipes in, we always add “Laura’s” to the title (“Laura’s Spicy Chicken Salad”) to indicate that this will be a reliable favorite.
Laura Fuentes says
Thank you so much Pam! 1 whole rotisserie chicken tends to yield about 4 cups of chicken, depending on the size of the chicken (as you know, they can vary from Costco/Sam’s club sized chickens to a traditional grocery store!). For this recipe, 4 cups of cooked chicken (breasts, thighs, mixed) is all you need. Thank you for making my recipes. You warmed my heart with “Laura’s” in your app. <3
Mary says
I LOVE this recipe, I do this salad at list twice a week for lunch. Thanks Laura is really good!!!