This easy Ranch Chicken Salad makes the perfect meal prep for healthy lunches all week!
Sweet summer!
I know that so many of you who have followed here for long enough know that we absolutely savor our summers around here. I tend to take a bit of a step back from writing to enjoy our beautiful Lake Michigan beach town and the girls, and this year isn’t any different! What IS a little different this year, is that I’m noticing that as they get older, it gets a little more on-the-go all day, and less beach time with afternoon naps or downtime!
Balancing life with a house filled with tweens & teens!
We do certainly make down time and play time a priority in our house, but these older kids do love their friend hang out time, and also become more involved with activities as they get older. That means that there are some days that I definitely feel like a chauffer (or, I guess since we are in 2023, that would make me an Uber driver, eh?!). With a schedule that includes less kitchen time, and more time outside of the home, there are definitely weeks where planning ahead to have a quick-to-grab lunch, or easy to pack “on the fly” kind of a lunch is vital. I still want to fill them up with food that counts, and a little planning (and an easy recipe!) can make that happen!
A little chicken salad twist!
Chicken salad has been on repeat at our house all summer, and for good reason. Not only does it make a great, cold lunch packed with protein, it is easy to make a ton of it if you use a whole chicken as your meat source. I’ll show you how to get the whole chicken made in a minute, but let me tell you about the “twist” part! A friend of mine told me a couple months back that she used my Ranch Seasoning Mix from my sheet pan Ranch Chicken Dinner recipe for chicken salad, and *that,* my friends, is what has become one of our favorite summer chicken salad twists! And the bonus is that once you have the DIY Ranch mix in your pantry, the chicken salad comes together in minutes with my method!
First things first…
So let’s start by talking about the chicken. There are a couple different methods you could use to get your cooked chicken – you do you, dear momma. I have found with a house filled with tweens and teens that the most budget friendly way to do this is by cooking a whole chicken for the meat. I like to use my Instant Pot to make a whole chicken in the summer, but you can use a slow cooker and still keep from heating up the house! Or, if you are in the cooler months and don’t mind turning the oven on, you’ll love my super fast Mayo Roasted Chicken method for the most flavorful, yummy chicken ever! You could also grill or pan sear chicken breasts or thighs if that is what you have on hand.
Here’s the easy part!
Once you have some cooked chicken on hand, the rest is going to take just minutes to put together! I quite literally dump everything into my food processor and pulse it until I like the consistency. If you don’t have a food processor, you can chop by hand and it should go pretty fast too. This is where you can bring in your preferences. Adjust the add-ins to your tastes, keeping it as simple or as complex as you wish. I always add onion and pepper, and then depending on the season some sort of fresh fruit. Most of the year, my chicken salads will have apples or grapes, but it is the middle of summer right now, and peaches are so good in chicken salad! Blueberries are a fun add in if you have those. If you have almonds or pecans on hand, a little handful of those are good in chicken salad as well.
Let’s talk about the consistency
If you like a chunkier chicken salad, pulse or chop your chicken salad components less. You can also go full on puree and make a spread-able chicken salad for pinwheels and wraps. This tends to be a favorite of little hands and it makes a really nice way to get some chicken into toddlers. I always end up somewhere in the middle – the consistency you see below is pulsing a few times, then scraping the sides down, and repeating that about 3 or 4 times. It makes a great sandwich or scoop-able texture for crackers or veggies.
Chicken salad serving options!
I mean really the sky is the limit!
- Anything you would normally dip or scoop into a dip can be used for chicken salad. Crackers, veggie sticks, and even potato wedges or chips!
- One of my girls prefers to just eat it right out of the bowl, and that is just fine too!
- Sandwiches are classic, but if you do not tolerate grains, you can use lettuce wraps, or mix it into a salad.
Onto the recipes!
Let’s talk about the Ranch seasoning mix first. I keep a jar of this Ranch seasoning mix in the pantry so it is easy to grab for things like dips, or seasoning chicken and potatoes. It is so easy to scoop from for this chicken salad too! Ranch season packets could work if you don’t want to mix your own Ranch seasoning, but flavors vary from brand to brand so play around with the amount (and watch those sneaky ingredients!). I like this Ranch season packet with clean ingredients if I’m using a packet.
DIY Ranch Seasoning Mix
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp dried parsley
- 1 1/2 tbsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp onion powder
- 1 tbsp dried basil
- 1 tbsp organic cane sugar, turbinado sugar, or coconut sugar
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Whisk everything together in a jar or container that has a lid. Store at room temp in an airtight container.
Notes
Ranch Chicken Salad Recipe
Healthy Ranch Chicken Salad :: An Easy Gluten & Dairy Free Meal Prep for the Week!
Ingredients
- 3-4 cups cooked chicken I use my Instant Pot to make an easy whole chicken to save money, but any cooked/leftover chicken works!
- 1/2 cup mayo of choice Start with this amount, & add more if you like it creamier.
- 1 tbsp Ranch Seasoning from the recipe above
- 1/2 bell pepper sliced into strips
- 1 small red onion (or 1/2 large) quartered, and then halved
- 1 cup fresh fruit of choice use what is in season! I used peaches here because it is the middle of summer, but apples and grapes are our favorite! Blueberries are good in the summer as well.
Instructions
- Put all of the ingredients into your food processor, and pulse until desired consistency. You truly could process until smooth if your kids prefer more of a spread-able texture that can be rolled up into a tortilla for pinwheels! Or, leave it chunkier by pulsing less. If you like it super chunky, hand chopping will give you the best result. For the texture you see in this post, you'll pulse a few times, then scrape the sides down, then pulse again a few times, and scrape down. I did this a total of 4 times I'd say.
Notes
- I get the Primal Kitchen Mayo in the picture above from Costco. There are a few different healthy oil based mayos in the store now using avocado oil! OR you can make your own mayo in minutes. My classic mayo recipe is in my cookbook, The Little Lunchbox Cookbook.
- Ranch season packets could work, but flavors vary from brand to brand so play around with the amount (and watch those sneaky ingredients!). I like this Ranch season packet with clean ingredients.
- Change up the veggies/fruit to what is in season! You can add spinach to bump up the veggies without changing the flavor, or broccoli works well too.
