Sunday Suppers ~ Hot Chicken Salad {w/ Potato Chips!}

Falls playful autumn light and cooling temperatures have got me back cooking in the kitchen, dear friends! As I was putting away recipe cards and printed recipe pages saved over the years, I had a hankering for Hot Chicken Salad…

Colonel McElyea’s wife Ann made this recipe at several of the dinners they held for an officers & family get-together/bbq’s at their base housing aboard Camp Pendlenton back in the late 1980’s. Honestly, this is where I gathered many of the recipes I still cook today. 🙂

Here’s what you have to look forward to munching… :)’ I personally was too hungry from prepping to cooking that I didn’t wait for the pie to cool, so my outer crust broke.

Yummy anyway!

Super easy to make, you can add leftover chicken as the base, throw in any kind of cheese and nuts and it turns out great!

Here’s the recipe ~ Hot Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 c. diced cooked chicken – 1/2″ cubes
• 1 1/2 c. diced celery
• 1 tsp. grated onion (*I used dried chopped, worked just fine)
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 tsp. “Accent” or “Mrs. Dash”
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1/3 c. chopped pecans
• 1 c. mayonnaise
• 1 c. grated or shredded cheddar cheese (can substitute any cheese)
• (1) pie shell, pre-baked (*I used Pillsbury Crescent rolls and they worked fine)
• ***1 c. grated or shredded cheddar cheese, use at end
• ***1 c. crushed potato chips (can try corn chips!), add in at very end

.

.

Recipe instructions:

• Combine chicken, celery, onion, spices, lemon juice, nuts and mayonnaise. Mix well.

• Place in a pre-baked pie shell. If using some dough like Pillsbury Crescent Rolls as your pie crust, prick well all around the dough before baking. Use weighted pie beads or dried beans to weigh down the dough and keep the dough from rising.

*I didn’t have either weights or dried beans, so I just re-pricked the crust and smooshed it down when it came out of the oven (after baking at 350 deg. for 5 minutes).

• Top with crushed chips and grated cheese.
• Bake in 350 deg/176 deg. C./gas mark 4 (roughly) for 20-25 minutes.

.

I baked my Hot Chicken Salad pie for just 20 min. and it was a touch overdone with the roll crust being over-brown, but it still tasted amazing and wasn’t burned. ;)’

Let me know if you try this recipe, friends! It’s a winner and it can be made with more cholesterol-friendly cheese, egg whites only, and mayonnaise made with olive oil (which I usually use for myself).

.

Happy cooking,