Easy Yummy Chicken Salad

by Sweet Pea · August 22, 2019

This is a slight twist of a cold chicken salad recipe from my home town, which calls for loads of spices and toasted peanuts. Although I love my home town chicken salad dearly, my version is equally good and more kid friendly. Also, this recipe takes about 30 minutes to make, perfect for a week night dinner.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, doesn’t matter if there is skin or bone
about 6 fresh green onions, divided
about 4 slices of fresh ginger
about 4 cloves of garlic, divided
a handful of Sichuan peppercorn. If you don’t have these, use black peppercorns
outside hard part of lemon grass, if you have some, if not, leave it out
1 small handful of fresh cilantro
2 TBSP oyster sauce
1 TBSP Hoisin sauce
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp powdered chicken bullion
chili oil, optional
2 TBSP soy sauce
1 tsp black Asian vinegar
1 tsp sugar

Method:

Put chicken breasts into a medium size stock pot. Fill cold water to cover chicken. Roughly slice 2 green onions lengthwise to release more flavor, bruise ginger slices and crush 2 garlic cloves. Put sliced green onion, crushed garlic, bruised ginger, Sichuan peppercorn and hard part of lemon grass into the pot. Turn the heat on high to heat up soup, until barely bubbling. Lower heat to low to keep stock from rapid boiling. Poach chicken breasts for about 25 minutes to fully cook them through. This poaching method will keep otherwise dry and bland chicken breasts juicy and tender for the salad.

In the mean time, thinly slice the rest of the green onions, mince the rest of the garlic cloves, and slice the cilantro leaves.

Fish out chicken breasts, let chicken breasts rest and cool on the cutting board for a good 10 minutes. Remove bone and skin if any and put cooled chicken breasts into large ziploc bags.

Lightly smash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to loosen up the meat fibers. This step helps chicken meat to absorb more flavor of the sauce. Remove chicken breast from the bag and shred it into bite size pieces and put into a large mixing bowl.