Copycat Trader Joe’s White Chicken Deli Salad – an easy lunch recipe that’s healthier than traditional chicken salad.
Wow, wow, WOW!
Holy Stromboli, this stuff is good!
Do you ever wish you could just eat other people’s food? I mean…I do. Can we talk about it?
Periodically, I go through spurts of time that I get a little womp womp over my cooking steez, and need to take breaks to replenish the ol’ creativity tank.
Recipe Development Burnout doesn’t happen to me frequently, but I when it does, I look to other bloggers, cookbooks, and/or restaurants to fuel my inspiration. Enter: copycat recipes. Enter: Trader Joe’s. Enter: the best chicken salad you will ever eat.
Whenever I go to Trader Joe’s, I make a beeline for their Curried White Chicken Deli Salad. I’d be lying if I said I don’t scarf the whole container in one sitting each and every time.
It just goes down that easy.
The last time I mowed through my coveted salad, I inspected the carton for ingredients and it dawned on me that I should 200% make that stuff at home. And so I did. And so I have a new obsession.
Chicken, raisins, carrots, green onion, and cashews make up this salad. I used a combo of yogurt and mayo for the dressing to lighten it up a bit and keep things real fresco.
If you want to be a genius, you’ll quadruple the recipe because there’s just no way it will last the night. The next time I make this, I’m going to shred the chicken so that the salad is easier to stick on bread for a chicken salad sandwich. If you’re looking for a quick and easy lunch recipe that you can prepare ahead of time and take to work, you just found it!
If you love protein salads like this, check out my Cucumber Dill Avocado Tuna Salad and my Mayo-Free Egg Salad.
This times infinity.
Copycat Trader Joe’s Curried Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts poached for 3 to 8 minutes
- ¼ cup whole milk Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon pure maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
- 3 green onions sliced
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ½ cup raisins
- 1 cup grated carrot
Instructions
- Heat a large pot of water and bring it to a full boil. Add the raw chicken breasts and reduce heat slightly. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes (depending on thickness of chicken), or until chicken is cooked through. Place chicken on a cutting board, chop into cubes, and allow it to cool.
- Whisk together the yogurt, mayo, lemon juice, mustard, maple syrup, and curry powder until well-combined.
- Add the green onion, cashews, raisins, and grated carrot to a large mixing bowl, along with the cooled chopped chicken. Pour the curry dressing over everything and mix well until everything is coated.
- Eat in abundance!
Nutrition
I tried making this today, and I’m not sure where I went wrong. The dressing was COMPLETELY off for me. I used Kewpie mayo (probably a mistake), Chobani low-fat (they were out of whole) and Watson brand curry powder (which tastes like cinnamon and nothing else). Uhg. What brands would you recomend for better flavor? At least the poached chicken came out ok 🙁
Hi there! I’m sorry it didn’t work out great for you!! I would think the Kewpie mayo and low-fat Chobani would have been fine, but if you felt like sauce wasn’t rich enough, a full-fat Greek yogurt might be the best bet. It sounds to me like the biggest issue was probably the curry powder. I haven’t tried a curry powder with cinnamon in it, and I can see how that would be off-putting. That’s a bummer the flavor was off! I use Simply Organic curry powder (https://amzn.to/4fPGGiV) or Frontier Curry Powder (https://amzn.to/3W9qrpY) I will forewarn you that the Simply Organic brand is a little spicy, so I’d go with Frontier if you don’t like spice. Let me know if you end up trying it again, and my apologies again for it not working out!! xo
Hi
I have loved this and been making it for a while now.
I would like to know if it can be frozen and will still be fine when thawed out. I was going to leave the cashews out until thawed.
Thanks!
I haven’t tried freezing this recipe myself so I’m truthfully not sure how it would turn out when thawed. I just googled whether or not chicken salad can be frozen successfully and it looks like the answer is yes. Because there’s a decent amount of fat content from the mayo, it should help protect the chicken and thaw nicely. I hope this helps! I’m happy to hear you’ve made the recipe multiple times, Shannon! That’s a win for me!
I planned a luncheon around using Trader Joe’s curried chicken salad, but, disappointingly, they had none on the shelf☹️ I came across your recipe and made my own instead. Such a delicious dish!!!
No more needing to head to TJ for this….
Yaaaaay! What a success story! I’m so thrilled to hear it, Laurie! Also psyched to hear there are other people out there who love that TJ’s salad as much as I do, lol! xoxo