This is a family recipe that’s great to use up your left over chicken. We will purposely cook a couple extra pieces of chicken for a dinner earlier in the week so we will already have my chicken ready to make this Fast & Fantastic Chicken Salad! Or some days, if you are like us – it is 4pm and we are at the store wondering what to make for dinner, we will just pick up a cooked rotisserie chicken – it also makes a delicious chicken salad.  For this recipe, we had a couple extra leftover chicken breasts from a dinner the night before.  To reheat the leftover chicken, so it is not dry and rubbery, we just cover it in tinfoil, add a few tablespoons of chicken broth, and stick it in the oven on low (around 200 degrees) for about 8-10 minutes. Warming the chicken makes it a lot easier to shred and will soak up the sauce as it cools. And an easy way to shred the chicken, especially for Little Chefs, once you take it out of the oven, still warm, use an Electric Hand Mixer on low. You can also just dice the chicken, if you prefer for your Chicken Salad.

Then, to make the Chicken Salad it is as easy as cutting up, adding in, and gently mix all the remaining ingredients together!! We like to add in the sauce ingredients at the very end to see if we need to add a bit more if it is too dry.

And you might be able to relate to my celery dilemma  - We would buy celery for a recipe, use a couple of stalks and stick it back in the fridge. Then when we go to use it again, it is limp and soft. A tip we learned to keep our celery fresh and crisp for weeks – cover completely in tinfoil before sticking it back in the fridge – it will be sure to stay fresh for your next recipe!

This is one of my Little Chefs, and Dad Little Chefs FAVORITE dinners.  And it always seems to be a big hit anytime other try this recipe!!  No rolls on hand, make up some of our Homemade Rolls to go with this Fast & Fantastic Chicken Salad.  And another great recipe to use your leftover chicken is our Quick Chicken Divan.

Quick Chicken Divan is a great recipe for leftover chicken or turkey. It started out as a fairly easy recipe that my Little Chefs would easily eat. Once they started helping me out in the kitchen I realized we need to simplify some of the steps to make it even easier for them to succeed. We changed it from a layered casserole which never stayed layered. Before serving we would stir it all up anyway to make sure all the “good stuff” was spread evenly around and shared by all. To simplify it we got rid of the layers and mixed it together from the beginning.

We love that it uses cooked chicken breast. If you are planning your meals ahead (which we don’t always do!) and cook two extra pieces and chop into bite size pieces and the hard part of this recipe is already done! In a large bowl combine the chicken, broccoli and half of the cheese. The recipe calls for frozen broccoli because it is ready to go, no need to thaw. In fact the extra water makes the sauce a little more soupy which is the way we like it. You are welcome to use fresh broccoli which we did this day because we had some available. Make sure to cut the pieces small enough to match the size of the chicken. You will also want to add a little water 1/4 cup at the most to make it a little more soupy.

In a small bowl, blend the cream of chicken soups, mayonnaise/sour cream, lemon juice, curry, garlic powder and pepper. Make sure when Little Chefs are measuring out they do not measure over the mixing bowl so that they can do it over just in case too much is poured….yes it has happened to us quite a few times!

Add the creamy mixture to the broccoli, chicken, cheese mixture and combine well. In a greased 9×13 baking dish pour in the mixture then top with the remaining cheese. I took the picture too early, but at least you can see it all mixed together. The other picture would have only showed cheese so I guess this one is better.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, until bubbly or lightly browned. We like to serve it over rice a side of Bacon Wrapped Green Bean Bundles and some Amish White Bread. This meal is always a hit with the Little Chefs. Of course whoever helped make it, in this case, Little Chef C, is the one to eat it the quickest!

We thought we would mix things up a bit and make a dish that is usually prepared for summer barbeques in the WINTER! And yes, we broke out the BBQ Grill in the winter, with snow on the ground! My Little Chefs thought it was so much fun.

We came across this delicious Chicken recipe when a good neighbor of mine brought us dinner one night. Our Chef Dad was out-of-town for work, and she knew that when he is out-of-town, us Chefs take a break from the kitchen and pretty much eat cereal for dinner.  She was thoughtful and assumed we would enjoy a home cooked meal, rather than cereal….and she assumed right!!! It was amazing, and my Little Chefs loved it. So, it became a favorite recipe of ours. We had not made it for a while because it is best when grilled, and since this winter has been a COLD, cold winter, the grill has been hibernating for the season…….Until tonight!

To make this very simple marinade, in a shallow pan add the italian dressing mix, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, soy sauce, honey. and mix till combined.

You then butterfly your chicken and pound it out to your desired thickness. (Tip – cover the chicken with plastic wrap before pounding it out to avoid a chicken splattered mess) Add it to the marinade and let it sit for at least 8 hours.

Break out the grill….winter or summer, (because its worth it), and Chef B thought is was the greatest to stomp around in the snow while waiting to flip the chicken!

 And Enjoy! So a big thank you for an amazing neighbor for sharing this AWESOME Chicken Marinade recipe with Five Little Chefs.