Curried Chicken Salad

This low-carb Curried Chicken Salad has asparagus and pine nuts, and curry fans will make this over and over!

PIN the Curried Chicken Salad to try it later!

I’ve been waiting to feature this Curried Chicken Salad because in Utah we kept getting rainy weather, so I thought a cold chicken and asparagus salad might be pushing it a bit. But then I noticed when I checked my blog stats that a few salad recipes had gone crazy on Pinterest, so I decided at least some of you are ready for salads!

I’m a huge salad fan, and some of my favorite restaurant meals are salads that I order over and over and never get tired of. And when I ate the leftovers from this salad for breakfast the day after we shot the new photos, I wished there had been a bit more left over!

We made a few changes to this salad recipe when we updated it, including switching out the peanuts in the original salad for pine nuts, which were an amazing change! Here’s the old Printer Friendly Recipe in case anyone was a fan of the original version.

What ingredients do you need for this recipe?

(This is only a list of ingredients; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

• fresh asparagus
• cooked chicken breast
• green onion
• pine nuts
• salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
• buttermilk, sour cream, or Greek Yogurt for dressing
• mayo
• fresh-squeezed lemon juice (I used my fresh-frozen lemon juice)
• lemon zest
• curry powder (affiliate link)
• Dijon Mustard (affiliate link)

How did we make the Curried Chicken Salad recipe easier?

For the updated version we used pre-cooked and cut up rotisserie chicken from Costco, which made the salad a lot easier to make.

What if you don’t want asparagus in the Curried Chicken Salad?

This salad also has asparagus which I know some people don’t have warm fuzzy feelings about, and if you want to try a different veggie, I think barely-blanched sugar snap peas, broccoli, or green beans would also be good.

How to make Curried Chicken Salad:

(This is only a summary of the steps for the recipe; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)

1. Cut asparagus on the diagonal into pieces and then blanch in salted water.
2. While you’re waiting for water to come to a boil and cooking asparagus, zest the lemon and squeeze the juice. You can use a fine cheese grater if you don’t have a lemon zester (affiliate link).
3. Whisk together ingredients to make the curry dressing.
4. After three minutes, drain asparagus well.
5. Lay out a paper towel on the counter and spread out the asparagus, then cover with another paper towel and blot away as much water as possible.
6. Let asparagus cool while you cut up enough cooked chicken to make 4 cups.
7. Slice green onions on the diagonal and measure out the pine nuts (or nuts of your choice.)
8. Combine diced chicken and asparagus with desired amount of dressing.
9. Gently stir in the green onion and pine nuts, season to taste with salt and fresh-ground black pepper, and serve.
10. We saved a few pine nuts to sprinkle on the top!
11. This can be kept in the fridge for a few hours before serving, and it was still amazing as leftovers when it had been in the fridge overnight, so if you’re cooking for a few people you could certainly double the recipe.

More Tasty Low-Carb Chicken Salads:

• Chicken Salad with Green Olives
• Greek Peperoncini Chicken Salad
• Chicken and Avocado Salad with Lime and Cilantro

Weekend Food Prep:

Curried Chicken Salad has been added to a category called Weekend Food Prep  to help you find recipes you can prep or cook on the weekend and eat during the week!

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Yield: 6 servings

Curried Chicken Salad

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Low-Carb Curried Chicken Salad with asparagus and pine nuts is so delicious that if you like these ingredients you'll want to make it over and over!

Ingredients

Salad Ingredients:

• 1 lb fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into diagonal 2 inch pieces
• 1 lemon (zest the skin and then squeeze the juice)
• 4 cups cooked chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces (see notes)
• 1 cup sliced green onion (see notes)
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, or other nuts of your choice
• salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Dressing Ingredients:

• 2 T buttermilk, sour cream, or Greek Yogurt
• 1/3 cup mayo
• 1 T fresh-squeezed lemon juice (or use more if you really like lemon)
• 1 T curry powder (or a little more)
• 2 tsp. Dijon Mustard
• 2 tsp. lemon zest (or a little more)
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt

Instructions

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Hold one piece of asparagus in both hands and bend until it snaps to see where the woody part ends; then trim all the asparagus to that length. Cut asparagus on the diagonal into pieces and then cook in salted water for 3 minutes. (Don't overcook!)
2. While you're waiting for water to come to a boil and cooking asparagus, zest the lemon and then cut lemon in half and squeeze the juice. (Use a fine cheese grater if you don't have a lemon zester (affiliate link).)
3. Whisk together buttermilk (or sour cream or Greek yogurt), mayo, lemon juice, curry powder, Dijon mustard, lemon zest and sea salt to make the curry dressing. Start with the original amount of lemon juice and zest and taste to see if you want a bit more lemon.
4. After it cooks exactly three minutes, drain asparagus into a colander placed in the sink and let it drain well. Then lay out a paper towel on the counter and spread out the asparagus on the towel. Then cover with another paper towel and gently press down to blot away much water as possible.
5. Let asparagus cool while you cut up enough cooked chicken to make 4 cups.
6. Slice green onions on the diagonal and measure out the pine nuts (or nuts of your choice.)
7. Combine diced chicken and asparagus with desired amount of dressing; you may not need all the dressing if you prefer your salads to be fairly dry.
8. Gently stir in the green onion and pine nuts.
9. Season the finished salad to taste with salt and fresh-ground black pepper, and serve.
10. This salad can be kept in the fridge for a few hours before serving, and it was still amazing as leftovers when it had been in the fridge overnight, so if you're cooking for a few people you could certainly double the recipe. If you have any extra dressing you might want to add a bit more right when you serve the salad.

Notes

We used rotisserie chicken breast that comes in a package at Costco which makes the salad extra easy to make! Please use the full amount of sliced green onion; this is so good in the salad!

This recipe adapted from The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook., although I changed it quite a bit from their recipe.

Nutrition Information

Yield

6

Serving Size

1
Amount Per Serving Calories 396Total Fat 24gSaturated Fat 4gUnsaturated Fat 18gCholesterol 87mgSodium 433mgCarbohydrates 7.5gFiber 4gSugar 4gProtein 37g

Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.

Did you make this recipe?

Did you make this recipe? Please leave a star rating (under the PRINT button in the recipe) or share a photo of your results on Instagram! THANKS!

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
This Curried Chicken Salad recipe would be approved for low-carb or Keto diet plans as well as any phase of the original South Beach Diet. South Beach would recommend light mayo and other diet plans would prefer the full-fat variety so take your choice on that!

Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Salad Recipes to find more low-carb salads like this one! Use the Diet Type Index to find recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, or on YouTube to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.

Historical Notes for this Recipe:
The recipe for chicken and asparagus salad with curry dressing was first posted in 2011 and updated with better photos and a few minor changes in 2019. The recipe was last updated with more information in 2024.

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