Chicken Salad

Here is my favorite chicken salad recipe--I remember my mom making this salad.  Sometimes she would serve it on a lettuce leaf.  But, usually we ate it as part of a chicken salad sandwich--on a homemade roll or croissant. 

Chicken Salad
3 cups chicken, cooked (canned also works)
1½ cups celery, chopped
2 Tb. parsley, chopped
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ cup whipping cream, whipped
1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tb. lemon juice
½ cup sliced almonds

Optional fruit mix-ins:
1 cup halved grapes
or 1 can drained crushed pineapple
or 1-2 cans drained Mandarin oranges

Mix together. Refrigerate at least an hour.

Chicken Salad on Traditional White Bread

Tiffany's Note: Growing up I never realized that chicken salad could have fruit in it!  I'm sure that's probably unusual because most chicken salad I've had as an adult has fruit in it.  My favorite fruit to add is grapes or crushed pineapple--but usually I make it without fruit. 

The two things that make this special are the cream and the almonds--I just love the taste of this chicken salad.  Another popular recipe for Chicken Salad is the quick one that Becky posted earlier.  {This recipe with cream is the original recipe Mom refers to in her note on that post.}

If you have a bunch of leftover chicken salad and can't manage to eat it all it can be re-purposed into a great chicken sauce to serve hot over rice.  To serve it with rice I usually add it to a can of cream of chicken soup and heat it in the microwave.