Tarragon Chicken Salad

The age-old dilemma of any cook is what to do with leftovers? Like most people, if you make one dish for dinner, you'll probably just heat up the same dish for lunch the next day. That is Kerry and my typical lunch. However, there is something wonderful about taking an entree, snapping your fingers, adding a few new ingredients that are on hand, and with a little bit of kitchen magic and love, a new meal emerges that not only tastes great but tricks your mind to forget you actually ate the same thing a day or two before.

Today, I looked in the refrigerator and saw two oven-roasted chicken leg quarters from a dinner on Thursday night. I knew that the legs could be turned into something wonderful, so I looked in my pantry and refrigerator to pull out the following:

What I made was a mouth-watering, light, crunchy and sweet tarragon chicken salad sandwich. The best news is I made the sandwiches in less than five minutes.

Ingredients

¾ cup cooked chicken (skin removed)
1 stalk celery (diced)
¼ cup of red seedless grapes, halved
⅛ cup chopped walnuts
¼ cup real mayonnaise (no Miracle Whip in this house)
1 teaspoon tarragon
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
½ teaspoon champagne vinegar (you can use any vinegar - however, this goes really well with the tarragon)

Directions

Remove the skin and chicken meat from the bones, dice and place in a mixing bowl.

Add the celery, grapes and walnuts.

In another bowl, add the mayonnaise, tarragon, salt, pepper and vinegar. Mix to combine. Make sure you taste to check the seasoning. (Rule #1 in cooking - always taste the seasoning as you go).

Place the tarragon mayonnaise in the other bowl and stir to combine.

Serve on whole wheat bread (or in a pita would be nice) along with some grapes or a salad.

A very quick, healthy and light lunch. All made from leftovers and ingredients on hand.