Chicken Salad Gougeres made with a chunky chicken salad with grapes, celery, and pecans in a creamy sauce lightened up by using reduced fat sour cream and mayonnaise.
Earlier in the week I posted my Gougere recipe and promised to post the chicken salad filling recipe. I served these chicken salad gougeres at a bridal shower I recently hosted. The recipe makes 24 gougeres. If you’re not serving a crowd, you might want to cut the recipe in half.
To cook the chicken breasts for the chicken salad, I used a dry poaching technique from The Kitchn. Dry poaching gives the chicken a great flavor, while keeping it moist and tender. You could also grill the chicken or poach it in the pressure cooker. You could even buy a roasted chicken and pull the meat off the bones and dice it.
I don’t make chicken salad very often for my family because some of my kids don’t like mayonnaise. But my mayonnaise hating daughter really enjoyed this lightened up chicken salad and told me it’s the best chicken salad she’s ever had.
Lightened Up Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- ½ cup light mayonnaise
- ½ cup light sour cream
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts cooked and diced
- 1 cup celery diced
- 1 cup grapes quartered
- 2 green onions diced
- ½ cup chopped pecans toasted
- 24 3- inch gougeres
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Add diced chicken, celery, grapes, and onions and toss gently to combine.
- Cover and chill at least 1 hour. Stir in pecans just before serving.
- To serve: cut gougeres in half and fill with a scoop of chicken salad.
Andrev
SOO GOOD! I used brown sugar splenda instead of brown sugarand light soy sauce and it was still delicious. I can’t beleive how good this is!
2 Sisters Recipes
These look amazing! Love the simple and delicious ingredients in your chicken salad, especially the grapes and pecans- can’t wait to try your recipe.
Adri
Beautiful, and absolutely perfect for a buffet. I bet these were a hit at teh bridal shower. Yum!
Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
Hehe well your adopted daughter loves mayonnaise but she would also love this! 😀 The dry poaching sounds interesting-I had to look it up as it just sounded so odd just from the name but it sounds worth giving a go! 😀 xxx
Foodiewife
I’m so glad to know that I’m not the only one who thinks grapes are perfect in a chicken salad! Gosh these look fabulous!
Emily
This looks like the perfect holiday dish–love finger foods during the holidays. 🙂
Kristen
These are such tasty little creations! Love that they are lightened up!
Maureen | Orgasmic Chef
Those gougeres filled with chicken salad just yell, “Party!” to me. Just enough but not overdone and the chicken salad filling looks really good. I’m off to find out more about dry poaching chicken.
Joanna @ Everyday Made Fresh
My grandmother used to make this when I was growing up and would serve it on crescent rolls for her lunch with the ladies from her Sunday school class. Of course it was not the lightened up version. This looks just as tasty without all the calories!
Carol
Mmmmmm…….I love that this doesn’t contain a lot of mayonnaise. I’ve been using at least half plain Greek yogurt in dressings for salads like these and we actually like them better-gives us the best of both worlds. I’, looking forward to trying the dry poaching to cook the chicken too.
I bet there were some very happy people enjoying these goodies at the shower-I sure would have been!
Lori
We make a version of chicken salad very similar to this, and it is the best salad I have eaten!
Mary
you are sn amazing cook. So love seeing all your ideas
Rosa
A tasty salad and great combination of ingredients.
Cheers,
Rosa