Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

I really hate wasting food. I’m a proud member of the Clean Plate Club, a huge advocate of the freezer (my former roommate, Laura, was utterly amazed at some of the foods I deemed freeze-and-reheat-able), and I’ve been known to do some pretty interesting things with leftovers. Butternut squash oatmeal, anyone? Hey, it worked. Luckily, with Nick around, not much food goes to waste. Ice cream is gone long before any signs of freezer burn can crop up, chips and crackers have no chance of going stale, and milk is always chugged (straight from the jug) before the expiration date.

Last week, I poached 3 pretty big chicken breasts for my Three Bean Chili, but only ended up using about one and a half. The leftover chicken had been sitting, quite unappetizingly, in the fridge for a few days. I had thoughts of adding it to the top of a salad for lunch, but even thought it tastes fine, boiled chicken just looks plain nasty, and that idea really didn’t sound too great. Then I remembered something my mom always used to do with poached chicken: chicken salad!

I’m not a fan of overly mayonaissey stuff, so I used half mayo and half spicy honey mustard. Some apples and pecans for crunch and flavor. This twist on chicken salad was an awesome use for my sad leftover meat.

1.5 cups chicken, poached and cubed
1 Granny Smith apple, diced
1/4 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
~ 2 tbsp mayo
~ 2 tbsp honey mustard
cracked black pepper, to taste

In a bowl, mix together the mayo and mustard. I had about 1.5 tbsp of each here, but after I added the chicken and apples, it was a little dry so I ended up adding about another 1/2 tbsp of each. You can adjust the amounts or ratio to your taste.