Next Time You Make Chicken Salad, Add 1/2 Cup Of This Italian Staple To The Mixture (It's Magic)

Whether served on its own or in a sandwich, chicken salad is an excellent source of lean poultry protein that provides comforting tastes and textures. It's also an excellent way to repurpose leftover chicken into an entirely new and delicious meal. Give your next batch a hearty punch of herbal Italian flair by adding ½ cup of pesto sauce into the mix.

Adding this delectable sauce into chicken salad is one of the absolute best uses for pesto. It gives recipes an especially pleasing, savory taste and velvety texture thanks to its fresh basil, buttery pine nuts, and funky cheese that are blended together into a vibrant green sauce. A ½-cup portion of pesto is all you need for every two pounds of cooked chicken in order to boost complexity without overpowering flavors. Simply combine the sauce with the rest of your chicken salad ingredients and the flavors meld together in the bowl.

Introducing pesto into your chicken salad is easy and effective, regardless of whether you're cooking your chicken from raw or making the most of a leftover rotisserie chicken. You can always use a store-bought brand or prepare your own bright and fresh pesto recipe, depending on the level of effort you wish to put into the dish. You can even add in another familiar Italian ingredient with some chopped sun-dried tomatoes for extra zing.

Mixing pesto into a crisp and creamy chicken salad recipe absolutely levels it up, but you don't have to stop there. For example, you can always change up your sauce ingredients for an even more unique chicken salad. Try using arugula in your next batch of pesto sauce to give it a more peppery note, which will boost the overall flavor of your chicken salad. Similarly, you can swap out traditional pine nuts for toasted pecans to add a more chicken salad-adjacent ingredient into the mix.

Additionally, figure out what best suits your personal preferences and proceed from there. Try making a vegan pesto using nutritional yeast in lieu of parmesan for a non-dairy version of the sauce that you can mix into a classic (or even vegan) chicken salad recipe. However you choose to infuse Italian flavors into your salad, all it takes is ½ cup of pesto for mouthwatering magic.

Serve your pesto-infused chicken salad on an Italian ciabatta roll or atop a piece of homemade herby focaccia. This would also make a lovely addition when mixed into pasta salad, added over a baked potato, or served with a side of rice. From picnic food to fine dining, pesto is the rich chicken salad addition that is as versatile as it is flavorful.