Coronation Chicken Salad

Hello, happy Sunday and welcome to Kelly’s Kitchen! Given the festivities of King Charles III’s coronation yesterday, I thought it might be fun to make Coronation Chicken Salad. This version is based on the Coronation Chicken created by Le Cordon Bleu to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. 

Originally, the cold chicken was dressed with a curry cream sauce; the dish was served to dignitaries at the coronation luncheon. And today’s recipe is what became popular in the 1980s – it’s loaded with dried fruit and toasted sliced almonds, scallions, and cilantro. Let’s get right to it!

The Summary

  Today we are making Coronation Chicken Salad

  Be sure to find the shoppable key ingredients and equipment at the end of the post

Coronation Chicken Salad

1. The Chicken

You can certainly start with leftover or rotisserie chicken if you like (you’ll need about 6 cups). Because I wanted to get more bang for my buck, I went with skin-on, bone-in chicken pieces boiled with spices and aromatics so that I could have a nice broth to use for other dishes.

In a Dutch oven or large stock pot, combine the chicken pieces with a halved, unpeeled onion, a cinnamon stick, black peppercorns, kosher salt, and bay leaves. Next, fill the pot with water to cover everything by about 1 inch. 

Bring the pot to a simmer over medium heat and let simmer, uncovered, for about 45 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Let the chicken cool in the broth for about 30 minutes. Then use tongs to transfer the chicken to a cutting board to let it cool enough to handle. 

2. The Salad Ingredients

While the chicken is cooling, you can prep and gather the rest of the ingredients. We have mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, diced dried apricots, madras curry powder, mango chutney, sliced scallion, chopped cilantro, and toasted sliced almonds. 

To toast the almonds, simply toast them in a dry nonstick pan over low heat, while shaking the pan every 30 seconds or so, until they develop a golden color.

Next, pull the skin off the cooled chicken and take the meat from the bones. Then shred or cut the chicken into bitesize pieces.

3. make the dressing

In a large bowl, whisk together the mayo, sour cream, lemon juice, mango chutney, curry powder and diced dried apricots.

4. Assemble the Coronation Chicken salad

Next, switch to a silicone spatula and fold in the shredded chicken. Be sure to fully coat the chicken in the dressing.

Now, fold in the sliced scallion and chopped cilantro. Be sure to fully incorporate the cilantro and scallion slices.

5. Final Touches

Give it a taste and adjust the seasoning by adding more kosher salt, black pepper, and curry powder – to taste. In addition, you can add more chutney or lemon juice, to taste. Furthermore, if it’s too dry, add more mayo or sour cream.

Finally, once you have the seasoning dialed-in to your liking, fold in the toasted almond slices.

And that’s it! Enjoy the salad on its own, on crackers, or between slices of bread – or you can try it a British way and top a baked potato with it! 

I went with two slices of soft sourdough bread.

Such a great Chicken Salad! It’s loaded with wonderful textures and flavor, and a little bit of spice from the curry. Such an easy recipe too, even if you go my way and make the chicken from scratch. Because now, I have a few quarts of homemade chicken stock. It’s tasty and it made the kitchen smell so cozy! 

Lastly, to save your chicken stock, strain the broth through a fine mesh sieve into a container or containers, cover and refrigerate or freeze. 

 

Key Ingredients and Equipment

Madras curry powder | mango chutney | Cambro container | Deli containers | Anchor Hocking Set of 10 Nested Bowls | DiOro Silicone Spatula Set | 2 in 1 Citrus Juicer

 

Be sure to visit Beth’s Amazon Shopfront for more recommended items – from tabletop and kitchen, to travel and home essentials.

In Case You Missed It

This morning, Beth shared 5 Spring-to-Summer Transition Outfits. Make sure to click the title or image below to read the article.

5 Spring-to-Summer Transition Outfits

About The Author