Tart cherries, smoky grilled chicken, sweet onions and creamy mayo fuse into a lusty ambrosia that beckons you to overeat. This is a great summertime salad when fresh cherries are available and relatively inexpensive.
Don’t try using canned cherries for this, they’re too musciad. Use fresh cherries.
Yes, it is a pain in the arse to pit the little red bastards, but it’s well worth the trouble.*
Our Cherried Chicken Salad is quite dense and really does not need a bread bed. But if you do want to turn this into a sandwich we recommend a sweet roll like a brioche, Portuguese sweet roll, or a King’s Hawaiian.
Need This
5 – 6 chicken thighs
A handful of fresh cherries (about 20)
Mayonnaise
1 small sweet onion (Vidalia or red) – diced
Salt
Ground black pepper (or cayenne)
Do This
Light your grill.**
Cook the chicken thighs over the hot coals until nicely browned and thoroughly cooked. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.
Cut a deep slice (till you hit pit) into each cherry. Pry the cherries apart with your fingers and dig out the pits with your thumb. Yes, your fingers will get all red, but you can wash them. Discard the pits so your cat
doesn’t choke on them.
Rough chop the pitted cherries.
Now cut up the grilled chicken into bite size (about 1/2 inch) cubes.
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Add about 2 heaping tablespoons of mayo (more if you should so desire).
Add salt and pepper to taste. Mixy, mixy, mixy, mixy.
Chill the salad in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
When ready to serve, remove from the fridge, mix well one more time and serve. Serve chilled on a lettuce leaf, over mesclun salad or on a sweet roll.
Serves 4. My cost approx. $ 7.50 total – about $ 1.88 per serving.
*Remember that fresh cherries are sold by the pound. You cam save money by only buying what you need for the recipe. GMN
**If you don’t have access to a barbecue grill you can fry the chicken on a grill pan with a little liquid smoke (Stubs is a good one). Not quite as a good as the real thing but decent enough. GMN