Juicy Poached Chicken Breasts make the best chicken for chicken salad.
Whether you're making a classic chicken salad with mayonnaise and celery or sweet chicken salad with grapes, poached chicken breasts are the ideal starting point for a creamy salad for lunch, light summer dinners, or a snack in front of the TV.
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Why Shredded Chicken is Great For Chicken Salad
Shredded chicken has a wonderful texture. Unlike chunks or cubes, your creamy chicken salad dressing will wrap itself around each shred of chicken creating a creamier salad.
What is Poaching?
Poaching is a moist heat cooking technique where food is submerged in a liquid and kept at 165°F, just below the boiling point. This technique allows the food to cook slowly and gently, resulting in tender and moist chicken.
If you've ever tried to make chicken salad with a rotisserie chicken, for example, parts of the chicken might be a little tough to chew on.
Buy poaching, every bit of the chicken is silky smooth.
What You Need
- Boneless chicken breasts
- Carrots
- Celery
- Garlic
- Onion
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Fresh parsley
- Cold water
I use carrots, celery, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper to flavor my poached chicken.
However, you can add any vegetables and herbs you have on hand.
For example, you can also add a lemon, ginger, parsnip, shallots, or dill.
How to Poach Chicken
- Place all the ingredients into a 7- or 8-quart pot. Fill the pot with water.
- Bring the liquid to a boil over medium-high heat. Lower the heat to medium, maintaining a gentle simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Do not cover the pot while cooking.
- Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it stand for 10 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the pot. I like to save the cooking broth for storing the chicken if I'm not ready to make a chicken salad.
According to the USDA's recommended temperatures chart, chicken is safe to consume when its internal temperature reaches 165°F.
Equipment Needed
- 4 to 6-quart pot with a tight-fitting lid
- Cutting board
- Sharp knife
- Vegetable peeler
- Skimmer
How to Shred Poached Chicken with 2 Forks
To make a creamy chicken salad, the chicken has to be prepared correctly. Of course, you can dice the chicken, but shredded chicken makes creamier chicken salad.
Shredded chicken has a wonderful texture. Unlike chunks or cubes, your creamy chicken salad dressing will be enveloped around each strand of chicken creating a better mouth feel.
- Before shredding, allow the chicken to cool slightly so it's easier to handle.
- Grab two sturdy dinner forks.
- Place the poached chicken breast on a cutting board or a stable surface.
- Insert the tines of one fork into the meat to hold it firmly in place. With the other fork, start pulling away at the meat, shredding it into thin strips. Work your way through the piece of chicken, shredding as finely or as coarsely as you prefer.
How To Use Poached Chicken
Poached chicken makes the best chicken salad! Whether you poach the breast or the thigh, poaching is the right way to cook chicken for chicken salad.
Try our recipe for Chicken Salad with Grapes. It's creamy and crunchy and so good!
You can also top a Caesar Salad with this chicken and on the side, add a cup of homemade Green Pea Soup for a filling meal.
The Gotham Salad, a dish created at Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City, is a delicious salad made with poached chicken breasts. Bacon, Gruyere, ham, beets, chopped eggs, and homemade pink dressing, round out the delicious dinner-size salad.
Additionally, poached chicken is great straight up! Whether hot or cold, poached chicken is delicious and makes for a great main course at lunch or dinner. Enjoy it on a bed of greens or alongside roasted vegetables for a healthy meal.
Storing Your Chicken
After the chicken has cooled, store it in an airtight container with some of the cooking liquid or water. The liquid will keep the chicken extra moist.
You can store poached chicken whole or sliced. The vegetables used during the poaching process can be eaten after the chicken is cooked.
If the chicken is shredded, store it in an airtight container for a day or two, or freeze it for up to 2 months until ready to use.
Key Takeaway
Chicken salad should be moist.
Quite often, homemade chicken salad is made with leftover or rotisserie chicken that might have been roasted, leaving hard surfaces here and there.
For creamy chicken salad every time, try poaching a few chicken breasts or thighs, and you will instantly see the difference.
Poaching is relatively easy to do. Fill a pot with water and simmer the chicken until it reaches 165°F and juices run clear when pierced with a fork.
Enjoy!
FAQ
Poached chicken takes about 20 minutes to cook.
Celery leaves have a tremendous amount of flavor. When making chicken soup or a short broth, rinse and add the leaves for additional flavor.
If you pull a piece of the chicken from the liquid and the juices run clear when pierced with a fork, the chicken should be finished. The USDA recommends cooking all poultry, including chicken, to an internal temperature of 165 ºF.
The broth has a subtle flavor. You can use it to cook rice, steam vegetables, or reduce it by half to use as the base for a soup.
"📖 Recipe"
Poached Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, (or thighs)
- 2 carrots peeled and sliced
- 1 celery stalk trimmed and sliced
- 1 garlic clove peeled
- 1 onion peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- handful fresh parsley
- 8 cups filtered or spring water
Instructions
- Rinse the chicken and place it flat in the bottom of a 7 or 8-quart soup pot. Add remaining ingredients and add water to cover by 3 inches.
- Bring the water to a boil over high heat. Skim foam from that has risen to the top with a big spoon. Lower the heat to medium so the water simmers, right below the boiling point. (Smaller, gentler bubbles will form on the surface.)
- Cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until meat is opaque and the juices run clear when pierced with a fork.*
- Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it stand for another 10 minutes.
- Remove the chicken from the pot with a skimmer and place it on a cutting board to cool for a few minutes.
- Shred the chicken with two forks or dice into ½-inch pieces.
Notes
The provided nutritional information is an estimate per serving. Accuracy is not guaranteed.