This recipe just reminds me of warm weather and sunshine. The beautiful orange color of the apricots, the fresh, bright taste of the dill… and the cool freshness that I love about chicken salad. Using dried apricots enables you to make this chicken salad ahead of time and keep it in the fridge all week long- without it getting soggy! Which makes it the perfect meal-prep recipe. Plus, you can use store-bought rotisserie chicken (or leftover roast chicken or slow cooker whole chicken) to make your life super easy and whip this up in only 10 minutes.
Tips and Tricks for making Apricot Dill Chicken Salad
This recipe could not be simpler to make. All you do is add all the ingredients to a large bowl and mix together!
But there are a few tricks here to getting the BEST chicken salad possible.
First, I recommend that you shred the chicken rather than chop it up. Grab two forks and use them to shred the chicken into pieces. If the shreds seem too big, you can run a knife over them a few times when you’re done to get them down to size. What shredding does is makes these beautiful uneven edges to which the mayo sticks SO MUCH BETTER than if you chop. The chicken salad holds its shape better when you try to put it in a sandwich, rather than having pieces of diced chicken smush out the side. It’s one of my favorite chicken salad hacks! The other trick is to make sure you chop the other ingredients up into small pieces. For a similar reason- if your apricots, celery, and onions are too big, you risk them toppling out of the sandwich or lettuce wrap. Plus, all the tastes will blend together so much better when the ingredients are chopped finely.
Ingredient Substitution Suggestions
Feel free to substitute the dried apricots for fresh- although, it won’t hold up quite as well if you make it ahead of time, since the liquid from the fresh apricots will cause them to become soggy and the liquid to seep into the rest of the salad. I also think this apricot chicken salad would be GREAT with dried cranberries or dates, or other dried fruit. I love a little sweetness in chicken salad. And you can easily substitute the sunflower seeds with sliced or slivered almonds, chopped pecans or walnuts, or other seeds such as pumpkin. Finally, you can substitute the mayonnaise with Greek yogurt or sour cream, if you prefer.
Try these other easy Chicken Salad recipes:
Fiesta Chicken Salad (mayo-free) Chicken Salad with Grapes and Walnuts Tzatziki Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad Curried Chicken Salad with Apples and Raisins Cherry Tarragon Chicken Salad
Be sure to check out these other easy lunch recipe ideas. Did you make this Apricot Dill Chicken Salad Recipe? Please comment below and Rate this Recipe!
