Smoked chicken salads

Smoked chicken meat has a juicy taste and unique aroma. Housewives love to use it for making cold snacks, as they are nourishing, moderately savory and like almost everyone. Each cook selects a portion of smoked chicken, based on their gastronomic preferences. Some like tender chicken breast meat, others prefer fatter and juicy chicken legs. Smoked chicken salads are prepared quickly, as this product does not require additional heat treatment. None of the guests will complain that the appetizer was too dry and fresh. Even an inexperienced cook will successfully cope with the preparation of such dishes.

Cooking Features

Smoked ham is a ready-to-eat product, which greatly speeds up and simplifies the process of cooking snacks, in which it acts as the main ingredient. Knowing a few moments will allow you to avoid unexpected troubles and get a guaranteed good result.

The taste of the prepared dish directly depends on the quality of the main ingredient. Home-smoked chicken leg is ideal, but most housewives have to be content with the goods from the store. It is worth paying attention to the appearance of the product and its shelf life, as well as the integrity of the vacuum shell. If at least one of the parameters does not suit you, do not hesitate to give up the purchase.
Before being added to salad, chicken meat should not only be separated from the bones and chopped, but also cleaned of skins and excess fat. Once in the salad, these fragments will not contribute to the improvement of its taste.
For the preparation of salad may require eggs, vegetables and some other products that require heat treatment. After cooking, they must be cooled to room temperature. If you combine products with different temperatures, they quickly deteriorate.
Smoked chicken salads can be regular and layered. Ordinary do not recommend to fill in advance, especially if the composition is fresh vegetables. Because of this, the snack may become watery at the time of serving. Puff salads, on the contrary, need to be collected at least 2-3 hours before the upcoming feast, otherwise the layers will not have time to soak in the sauce.

The smoked chicken leg is combined with various products and sauces, which allows the chef to experiment, creating his own versions of popular snacks. Experienced cooks do not advise only adding cucumbers and tomatoes or beans and mushrooms to salads with smoked chicken at the same time. These pairs complement each other so well that they will dominate in the salad, pushing the taste of chicken into the background.

Puff salad with smoked ham and Korean carrots

Composition:

smoked leg - 0, 25 kg;
chicken egg - 2 pcs .;
Korean style carrots - 100 g;
hard cheese - 100 g;
canned corn - 150 g;
salt, fresh greens - to taste;
mayonnaise - how much will go.

Method of preparation:

Remove the skin from the chicken leg, separate the meat from the bones, chop finely, put it on the bottom of the salad bowl. Pour with mayonnaise.
Place the Korean carrot on top, pre-chopping it with a knife. Cover with mayonnaise mesh.
Wash, shake off the greens from the water. Let it dry by putting it on a napkin. Chop it with a knife, sprinkle carrots on it.
Open a jar of corn, flip it in a colander. Let the grains dry, put them in the next layer, smear with sauce.
Cook hard boiled eggs, cool under running cold water. If you put them to cook until the beginning of the preparation of the salad, by the time when they turn to come, they will be fully prepared. Free them from the shell, chop on a grater, put in a salad bowl, brush with mayonnaise.
Coarsely grate the cheese, sprinkle on the salad.

The appetizer for this recipe is prepared quickly, but before serving it must be allowed to brew at least a couple of hours. If you need to serve it on the table right away, do not coat the food with the sauce, but mix them with it before putting it in a salad bowl.

Smoked chicken leg and pineapple salad

Composition:

smoked leg - 0, 25 kg;
chicken egg - 4 pcs .;
canned pineapple - 150 g;
semi-hard cheese - 0, 2 kg;
mayonnaise - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Separate the chicken meat from the bones, remove the skin. Slice the meat into small pieces, place in a bowl.
Eggs boil hard boiled. Cool by placing in cold water. Peel, cut into small cubes, combine with chicken.
Pineapple cut into cubes with a size of about 5-7 mm, put to other components.
Cut the cheese in the same pieces as pineapple, or coarsely grate. Add to other products.
Mix mayonnaise with pineapple juice. 100 ml is enough to take 5-10 ml of syrup.
Season the salad with the resulting sauce, put it in a salad bowl, and serve to the table.

Salad can be laid out in layers. Be the first to place the chicken leg, on it - the pineapples, place the eggs on top and cover with cheese. Each layer, except the last, pour sauce.

Salad with smoked legs, Chinese cabbage, nuts and grapes

Composition:

smoked leg - 0, 3 kg;
light grapes - 0, 2 kg;
walnut kernels - 50 g;
Chinese cabbage - 0, 6 kg;
mayonnaise - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Divide the leg, separating the fillet from the skin and bones. Cut it into small pieces, put it in a bowl.
Wash the grapes, let it dry. Cut the grapes into halves, remove the bones, add to the chicken. If the grapes are small and boneless, it can be put in a salad entirely.
Disassemble cabbage into leaves, wash them, blot with a napkin. Chop coarsely, add to the remaining ingredients.
Season the salad with mayonnaise, mix, put on the dish.
Fry the kernels of nuts in a dry frying pan, crumble with a knife.
Sprinkle the salad with chopped nuts and serve to the table.

The appetizer in this recipe is nourishing, but light. It will be even more useful if mayonnaise in its composition is replaced with sour cream or unsweetened yogurt. This salad can be prepared not only for the holiday, but also for a family dinner. Especially he likes the ladies.

Smoked Chicken Leg Salad with Mushrooms and Tomatoes

Composition:

smoked leg - 0, 25 kg;
tomatoes - 0, 2 kg;
fresh champignons - 0, 3 kg;
hard cheese - 150 g;
vegetable oil - 20 ml;
salt, pepper - to taste;
sour cream or mayonnaise - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Remove the skin from the chicken leg, separate the fillet from the bone, cut it into small pieces, put it in a bowl.
Wash tomatoes and blot with a napkin. If they are juicy, remove the most watery fragments with seeds.
Cut the tomato pulp into approximately the same pieces as the chicken fillet, mix with it, adding a bit of mayonnaise. Put in a salad bowl or dish.
Wash the mushrooms and dry with a paper towel, cut into cubes.
Grease a pan with butter, put mushrooms on it, fry. Fry until the liquid released from the product evaporates.
Salted and pepper mushrooms, let them cool. Mix with mayonnaise. Put the second layer.
Chop grated cheese, sprinkle with salad.

The composition of this salad is simple, its preparation will not take much energy, but you and your guests will surely enjoy the taste. The recipe can be supplemented with croutons, after smearing the cheese with mayonnaise and spreading the croutons with the top layer.

How to decorate a smoked chicken salad

Some salad recipes with smoked chicken legs provide a specific design option. If the recipe has no instructions on how to decorate a salad, you can do it, relying on your own imagination. You can offer a few ideas decorating these snacks.

You can lay out a salad on plates using a special form with a press, giving a snack a cylindrical shape. Salad will resemble a cake. To enhance the similarity from above, you can put a flower from a tomato, cucumber, radish or other vegetable that is part of the salad. Another option is not to add one of the ingredients in the appetizer itself, but put it on top. This ingredient can be crackers, carrots, olives. In the absence of a special form for decorating salads, you can use a tin can by cutting the bottom from it.
Layered salad can be collected not in a salad bowl, but on a dish. If you use a split baking dish, the finished snack will resemble a cake. Decorate it with flowers from vegetables or patterns of finely chopped olives, peppers and other bright products.
By placing a glass in the center of the dish and putting the salad around it, it will be possible to give the snack a ring shape. It only remains to remove the glass and decorate the dish, giving it a resemblance to a wreath or bracelet.

With the help of a paper stencil, lettuce can be shaped into an object that is a symbol of the holiday.

Smoked chicken salads are tasty, nourishing and appetizing, regardless of the recipe chosen. The snack option is chosen taking into account the preferences of the hostess and the time she has in order to set the table.