Chicken Curry Salad/ How to poach chicken

I adore chicken salad.  I especially adore curry chicken salad!  My favorite way to make chicken for salad is poached chicken, which renders the chicken especially tender.
 

Poached Chicken:

4 boneless chicken breasts

3 C water

1 tsp. Organic Better Than Bouillon chicken base

1/2 tsp. sea salt

Bring water and seasonings to a boil.  Gently add chicken breasts, and lower heat to low, where just barely a bubble or 2 pop up as it poaches.  Cook about 10 minutes.  Take off the heat and cover, and let stand another 10-15 minutes.  This makes perfectly poached chicken!

You can use plain water, but seasoned water is just so much better!   I save the broth that is left to use at a later date.  The poaching liquid is indeed a broth that would work nicely in making rice, or soup, or whatever.

Chicken Curry Salad:

4 chicken breasts (cubed, or shredded, I like cubed.)

1 1/2 C mayonaise

1 stalk celery chopped fine

1 small onion chopped fine

2 cloves garlic chopped fine or pressed  ( I like pressed.)

1 C raisins  ( I used purple today, but prefer golden in this salad.)

1 C chopped walnuts or pecans

2 tsp. curry powder

pinch of salt or to taste

Blend the mayo and the seasonings to make the dressing.  Add all of the other ingredients and mix until well blended.   Refridgerate at least an hour or overnight.  This is a taste explosion!

There are so many ways you could adjust this to your tastes.  You can add cubed apples or halved grapes in lieu of the raisins.  You can use any kind of nut you like.  I've used cashews, pecans, slivered almonds, and walnuts here.  This is an easy delicious way to use leftover chicken!

I like to make the day ahead, as it tastes so much better the next day, after all of the flavors can meld.  This makes a great sandwich, or served over a bed of lettuce.  Today I served the salad on toasted bread with avocado.  This sandwich really ROCKED!  Yum!

Enjoy!

Yours in health,

Natalie