Leftover Rotisserie Chicken Salad

 

This rotisserie chicken salad recipe with roasted Proscuitto asparagus is a simple and delicious low-carb dinner.

 

One of the easiest ways to eat healthy when faced with a busy schedule is to let someone do part of the work for you. 

Using a rotisserie chicken from the market is an incredibly versatile and delicious way to save time during a busy work week.

Adding roasted Proscuitto asparagus puts the dish over the top with delicious flavor.

The hot, fresh, and ready-to-eat rotisserie chicken makes an easy lunch when meal prepping.  

Often, it's arguably more affordable than purchasing a raw chicken and there is no reason to heat up the oven on warm summer days.

 

 

How to break down a rotisserie chicken for multiple meals 

The key to getting one or many great meals out of a store-bought rotisserie chicken is to break the chicken completely down in an effort to minimize waste.  

Start by grabbing the leg by the thickest part and breaking it away from the bird.  

Similarly to the leg, grab the thickest part of the wing and snap it off.

Repeat with the other leg and chicken wing.

To get to the breast meat,  run your fingers down either side of the breast bone and remove the meat in a large chunk or in chunks.  

The chicken has lots of delicious meat other than in the breast and legs

With the white breast meat removed, go back to where the wings and legs were. Pick away any large chunks of meat on the sides and back of the chicken.  

I like to put all of this meat in yet another separate pile on the cutting board.  

You can toss these parts if you like, but they can also be saved and made into a wonderful chicken broth another time. I often use some of the chicken to make these No-Fry Chicken Croquettes. They are yummy for lunch or dinner.

 

 

Take the time to separate the chicken dark meat as well as other chicken scraps on the cutting board.  

I take a large chef's knife and chop all that meat down into very fine, tiny bits of chicken. 

By doing this, the meat gets a more uniform texture. While I'm chopping, I can pick out any undesirable bits of fat or anything I do not feel like adding to my dish.

 

 

With the chicken dark meat all chopped up finely, it's time to slice the breast meat.

Take the larger breast pieces and cut them into much larger chunks.

This not only showcases them better but it makes for some large and delicious bites.

 This is easily turned into a yummy rotisserie chicken salad. I like to also add pecans for some crunch. 

 

 

 

How to make chicken salad with store-bought rotisserie chicken

This evening's chicken dinner salad will remain pretty simple.  

Trying to keep the dish a bit lower in carbohydrates, I weigh out 2 oz of pecans for the dish. It's about a 1 oz serving of pecans for each of us.

 

 

 

The main ingredients go into a mixing bowl and it gets an incorporating stir binding all the ingredients together.  

Add a few turns of the pepper mill, a pinch of dried dill, and a splash of hot sauce to the chicken.

Now this quick and easy chicken salad is a few stirs away from the dinner table.

Ingredients & Substitutions

Fortunately, this dish works well with various ingredients and handles substitutions well.

As long as you have the cooked chicken, there are so many different ways you can substitute or even add different ingredients.

• Plain yogurt or Greek Yogurt can take the place of mayonnaise and will add a yummy sour taste to the dish.
• If you prefer to refrain from dairy, a tablespoon each of lemon juice and olive oil makes a nice dressing for the chicken.
• Various fresh herbs including tarragon, cilantro, and rosemary can take the place of dill.
• Consider adding fruit like dried cranberries.
• Don't forget to season with salt and pepper before serving.

Roasted Prosciutto Asparagus makes a delicious side to this dish

One of my favorite side dishes is roasted Proscuitto asparagus. 

Look for asparagus which is about the thickness of a pencil. I find the more svelte asparagus stalks to be much more delicious than thicker ones.

Prepare the roasted Proscuitto asparagus by washing it and patty dry.

Instead of messing around with odd bend-and-break techniques, simply cut the bottom third of the asparagus off. 

You can use the asparagus bottoms in a quiche or soup, but I like to chop them small and use it in a stir fry.

Prosciutto is a delicate slice of cured meat. 

It's thinly sliced and has a gorgeous flavor both sweet and salty.

Prosciutto often has a natural striation within the meat which allows you to separate it into two or more long strips.  If you can't separate the Prosciutto into strips use a knife and cut it lengthwise into long strips.

Starting close to the tip, wrap the prosciutto tightly around the asparagus. Place the wrapped asparagus on a baking tray and roast at 400F for 15 minutes. 

The roasted asparagus will be perfectly cooked. The Prosciutto gets slightly rendered and adds a bit of texture to the asparagus.

This is a very quick, easy, and delicious way to make a fast dinner. 

Less than half of the chicken was used to make this dish. Leftovers yielded a few more dishes later in the week and they are often a blank canvas. 

Here, I choose to add pecans and mayonnaise to the salad. But the possibilities are limitless for what you can create with a rotisserie bird from the market.  

I encourage you to experiment.  Or are you chicken?