Chicken Apple Salad with Candied Walnuts
Recently, I was the winner of Mimi’s, Mimi’s Kitchen, Girard’s Dressings giveaway. We have been using Girard’s Light Champagne Dressing for a couple of years now and we love it. So I was excited to try some of their other flavors.
Mimi posted several great salad recipes on her giveaway post, including this one for Chicken Apple Salad. She used Girard ‘s Apple Poppy Seed dressing and it is a perfect fit for this salad. It is sweet, like a raspberry vinaigrette, but light and really compliments the fruits in the salad.
I changed up Mimi’s salad a bit. I used green onions and Parmesan and added the candied walnuts I fell in love with posted on Our Best Bites. As with most salad recipes, it’s easy to make it your own and use whatever flavors/ingredients you like. I served this as a main dish with some hearty whole grain rolls.
Chicken Apple Salad with Candied Walnuts
Ingredients:
- 1/2 c. chopped walnuts
- 1/4 c. sugar
- 2 chicken breasts, grilled and diced
- 4 slices of pre-cooked bacon, chopped
- 2 cups mixed greens
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries (Craisins)
- 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 3 oz. package apple chips
Directions:
Combine the walnuts and sugar in a medium skillet. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until the sugar starts to liquefy. Continue stirring constantly until the liquid reaches a golden color and coats the nuts. Remove from heat and spread candied nuts onto a greased cookie sheet or plate and allow to cool completely. Stir occasionally as it cools to break up large pieces.
Toss remaining ingredients in a bowl and serve with your favorite dressing. I used the Girard’s Apple Poppy Seed dressing.
adapted from Mimi’s Kitchen and Our Best Bites
I also made a spaghetti toss recipe that came with the dressings. It used the creamy balsamic vinaigrette, which was delicious as well and would be perfect for any pasta salad. Thanks Mimi for hosting the giveaway!
Other salad recipes you might like:
Perfect Pasta Salad, Barbara Bakes
Coucous Salad, Mimi’s Kitchen
Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad, Our Best Bites
Greek Chicken Pasta Salad, Wives with Knives
I love the apple chips and the candied walnuts, crunchy and delicious.
Barbara,
Wonderful salad here, the candied walnuts are a great addition to the chicken and apples, adding great crunchy texture.
Bon appetit!
CCR
=:~)
I love this salad. I just made one recently with candied walnuts and pears. I love the grilled chicken and apple chips in yours. I really like making different salads. This is one I will be trying.
Looks delicious – candied walnuts, nice touch yum!
Candied walnuts sound fantastic! Scrumptious sounding salad too, and great idea to round it out as a main with bread rolls.
Oooo… mamamia, this is such awesome combo! Love everything in the salad. The addition of candied walnut just amazing. Thanks & hope you’re having a great weekend.
Kristy
Crunch crunch … I like the sound of this, and am glad you won! You always put the stuff to such great use. The salad dressing sounds wonderful… mmmm!
Girard’s dressings are really great! I love all the different flavors and textures in this delicious salad!
I recently made candied pecans for the first time. What a wonderful treat! The only problem was that pecans are so expensive. I decided that I would use walnuts next time.
The recipe I used involved baking the walnuts and adding a few tasty spices but was otherwise the same idea. I posted the recipe to my blog which can be found here:
http://peredurskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/09/thursdays-spread-aftermath.html
Cheers!
I’m with you on the Girard dressings. Usually, I make my own, but they have some that I just love. I haven’t tried the Poppyseed, I’ll have to pick some up!