Anthony Bourdain's 1-Ingredient Upgrade for Better Chicken Salad
Bourdain's recipe was new to my chicken salad-loving household, but now I won't make it any other way.
As a nutrition major in the early 2000s, watching Food Network was my favorite way to unwind. Anthony Bourdain’s first show, A Cook’s Tour, felt edgy, raw, and unscripted compared to the home-cooking shows I favored, and his adventurous spirit and reverence for global cuisine sucked me in.
Bourdain earned legendary status as an opinionated and well-traveled chef, but he also had a knack for upgrading classic recipes. Take, for example, his approach to chicken salad.
The standout ingredient in his recipe is celery salt. I followed his recipe exactly, including celery salt alongside the usual cast of mayonnaise, celery, and a bit of finely diced onion. The result was a flavorful, zippy chicken salad that far surpassed my previous attempts.
How Does Celery Salt Improve Chicken Salad?
If you need a refresher, celery salt is a blend of salt and crushed celery seeds. You don’t see it in many recipes—though it sometimes shows up in seasoning blends and bloody Marys—but I’m now convinced we all should be using more celery salt.
Somehow, Bourdain's trick makes chicken salad taste, well, even more chicken salad-y. How could that be? I have a few theories.
First, there’s the salt factor. Most everything tastes more vibrant when properly seasoned. Then, there’s the celery. Most chicken salad recipes include some chopped celery, which adds necessary crunch and a fresh, herbal flavor. The celery salt makes the celery really pop and adds a layer of brightness and zest that cuts through the heaviness of the mayonnaise.
Anthony Bourdain’s Other Chicken Salad Tricks
Bourdain includes a couple other kitchen staples that make for a superior chicken salad. A bit of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco add depth and a subtle touch of heat, while optional fresh tarragon delivers a light sweetness.
He instructs you to poach your chicken breasts, which yields perfectly tender meat. Bourdain also insists the chicken should be finely diced into one-quarter-inch cubes. Typically, I shred my chicken breasts, but I admit that uniformly cutting them into smaller cubes resulted in a meatier chicken salad with zero mush factor.
For a second opinion, I turned to my boyfriend, who’s never met a chicken salad he didn’t like. “That,” he proclaimed after one bite, “is really good chicken salad. That’s the way to make it from now on.”
I have to agree. Now that I know Bourdain's tricks, I won’t make chicken salad any other way.
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