Apple Pecan Chicken Salad

Apple Pecan Chicken Salad makes a greats lunch or dinner. It is full of delicious flavors that compliment each other perfectly, like: apple, blue cheese, onions, and pecans all tossed in a white balsamic vinaigrette.  You can even leave the chicken off the salad and it makes an amazing salad side dish. 

Panera Fuji Apple Chicken Salad Inspo

The inspiration for this Apple Pecan Chicken Salad came from my love of a salad at Panera. Every time I eat there I get the same thing, the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad, and I love it! It has a perfect balance of crispy greens, tangy blue cheese, crunchy pecans, spicy red onions, and sweet apple chips. All of those components are included in this recipe too. 

Crispy Apple Chips

Those crispy little apple chips are one of the stars of this salad. You can find them in the snack aisle or look in the health food section. Just make sure you get the crispy baked ones, not the spongy dried ones.

Bare Naked makes delicious apple chips in regular or cinnamon. You can also find these at Aldi in the snack aisle.

Apple Pecan Chicken Salad for Dinner

This is a salad that is filling enough to be served at dinner. But, I know my husband gets nervous if a salad, alone, is brought to the table. So I serve this with some kind of crusty bread like a ciabatta with extra virgin olive oil or a baguette with butter and garlic.

If we’re souper hungry (lol) I will serve it with a delicious soup like this restaurant style potato soup, or Instant Pot sweet potato & quinoa chili, like the meal you would eat at Panera.

Make the salad your own

You can customize this salad to your preferred flavors. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• sub fresh apples for the crispy dried apple chips
• sub fresh pears for the apple chips
• use a feta or gorgonzola cheese in place of the blue cheese
• take the chicken out and have it as a side salad
• use the flavored apple chips for a different flavor profile- like cinnamon

Apple Pecan Chicken Salad Tips:

Tomatoes

One thing that I HATE in a salad is cold flavorless tomatoes. When I have the time I cut my tomatoes 20 minutes to 1 hour before I assemble the salad. I sprinkle them with salt, pepper and garlic powder and let them sit at room temp. It makes the tomato a tasty part of the salad you actually want to eat.

Greens

Another great tip is to make sure your salad is completely dry before tossing it with the dressing. I like to wash my lettuce leaves whole. That way, if you do not have a salad spinner, you can easily wipe down the leaves before chopping it for the salad.

Dress your greens before adding all the yummy mix ins. For this salad I toss all the romaine with the dressing, then add the onions, apple chips, cheese, pecans and tomatoes and give it one last turn around the bowl. Then it is ready to serve and all the mix ins still look perty.

Toasted Nuts

Toast your nuts! I toast the pecans in a dry pan for about 5 minutes over low heat, stirring once in a while so they don’t burn. It completely changes the flavor, for the better.

Rinsing Onions

Rinse your onions. I know I have said this before, but it is such a great tip and so easy to do. By rinsing the onions you remove the enzyme that makes that pungent onion flavor stay in your mouth for hours. When you are eating onions raw rinsing them makes a huge difference.

Molasses in Your Dressing

If you need your dressing to stay combined/emulsified for a long time (ie: you are setting it on the table for a dinner party) you can sub 1 tablespoon of the honey for molasses. It will change the flavor profile slightly, but not enough that it is extremely noticeable. 

The molasses will keep your dressing combined and not let it seperate. #Science.

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Originally Posted May 2017 – Recipe, Copy, & Photos Updated October 2019