This Cashew Chicken Salad Recipe is a pasta salad that offers a lot of space for innovation on your part. It features boneless skinless chicken breasts.
How would you like them cooked? Broiled, baked, grilled, sautéed? It’s up to you. Same for the type of pasta – it could be penne, rotelli or elbows, etc.
You get A lot of different salads from just one chicken salad recipe.
Measure the ingredients for the salad dressing very carefully, as this creamy, sweet dressing has some unusual ingredients.
This is sure to be a favorite with the “I like it crunchy” crowd, and probably everyone else as well.
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This salad features chicken breasts and very flexible. Make changes that you like.
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 cup unsalted cashew halves and pieces
- 2 cups small pasta such as seashells, cooked
- 1 small sweet onion diced
- 1 small green bell pepper diced
- 5 stalks celery split lengthwise and diced
- 1 cup mayonnaise based salad dressing
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- Pinch ground black pepper
- Cook the chicken breasts in any manner you prefer.
- The easiest way is to cut the breasts into bite sized pieces and quickly sauté them in a little olive oil. But you could also quickly broil them in the oven - cook them all the way through, then when they are cool enough to handle, cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.
- Make the dressing by combining the salad dressing (Miracle Whip), brown sugar, fresh lemon juice, the distilled white vinegar and the kosher salt with the black pepper.
- Toss the dressing with the cooked pasta, and then add the celery, green bell pepper and the sweet onion. Lastly add the cooked chicken pieces.
- Refrigerate the salad until ready to serve.
Food For Thought – this would make a great recipe for leftovers from a roasted chicken – just shred the meat, enough for 2 cups.
Good To Know – You can use diced red bell pepper instead of the green if you prefer it. It will bleed onto the rest of the salad, so it’s a good idea to quickly blanch the diced red bell pepper in boiling water then cool it quickly in ice-cold water. Dry the diced pepper on a paper towel before tossing it with the rest of the salad ingredients.
On Your Own – Some people prefer using light-styled ingredients. Feel free to substitute light or low-fat creamy salad dressing, and use Splenda for the brown sugar.
If you have a cider or white wine vinegar on hand, use it rather than the distilled white vinegar, and see which you prefer.
If you have room in your recipe file for another chicken salad you need to add this Pasta Cashew Chicken Salad Recipe.
Enjoy!
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