This easy Pesto Chicken Salad is absolutely delicious, made in just five minutes with only four ingredients! Whip up a batch today for lunch, brunch, or your weekly healthy meal prep.
Why We Love It
This Pesto Chicken Salad is such a delightfully delicious recipe to make for lunch or your weekly meal prep. It’s a great recipe to add a punch of flavor and fun to lunchtime. So why do I love it so much?
👉 It’s made with simple ingredients. You only need four ingredients to make this recipe, and they’re all easy-to-find grocery essentials.
👉 It’s absolutely delicious! Pesto is so herby and savory, and it pairs wonderfully with the chicken and sweet sun-dried tomatoes. The dish is balanced beautifully with a little creamy mayo to make the best chicken salad EVER.
👉 It only takes five minutes to make. There’s no cooking involved in making it! Just grab your ingredients and mix them together, and you’re ready to serve!
Like my Apple Walnut Chicken Salad or Dill Pickle Chicken Salad, this is another lunch recipe you’ll love to make time and time again!
Ingredients
Ingredients Notes:
- Optionally, add 1 Tablespoon of minced red onion for more flavor and crunch.
- I recommend sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil for more flavor, and when possible, buying sulfite-free tomatoes.
- Use any store-bought pesto you enjoy, or make my dairy-free pesto recipe.
- If you don’t like or don’t have mayo, you can substitute unflavored, unsweetened Greek yogurt.
- This recipe works great using leftover roasted chicken.
- For Whole30: Use my compatible dairy-free pesto, compatible mayo, and sugar-free and sulfite-free tomatoes.
- For Low Carb: Use sugar-free tomatoes and sugar-free mayo.
Instructions
Step 1: Assemble the ingredients.
If your sun-dried tomatoes are jarred in oil, drain the oil. If they’re halved or julienned, dice them into small pieces.
Add the chicken, mayo, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes to a bowl.
Step 2: Mix and serve.
Mix all the ingredients together until they’re fully combined.
Lightly season the chicken salad with pepper to taste. The pesto is usually salty enough to flavor the chicken salad, so it probably won’t need any salt.
Guess what? You’re done! You can enjoy the chicken salad right away, or cover and store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat it, up to 4 days in advance, per USDA.
Serve the chicken salad on toasted bread, in lettuce wraps, or with crackers or slices of cucumbers.
Expert Tips & FAQ
Leftover refrigerated chicken salad is good for 3-4 days, per USDA.
Transfer the leftover chicken salad to an airtight container or bag, seal, and store in the refrigerator.
For best taste, I would not recommend freezing chicken salad. Mayonnaise will separate once it defrosts, so the texture of the chicken salad would not be creamy or appealing.
More Healthy Lunch Recipes
I’d love to hear about your experience making this recipe!
Please leave a comment below or tag me on Instagram @cookathomemom.
Pesto Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked chicken cooked and diced or shredded
- 1/3 cup pesto
- 3 Tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 Tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes diced
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- If the sun-dried tomatoes are jarred in oil, drain the oil, then dice the tomatoes into small, bite-sized pieces. Add the chicken, mayo, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes to a bowl.
- Mix all the ingredients together until they’re fully combined. Lightly season the chicken salad with pepper. Serve and enjoy right away or cover and store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat it, up to 4 days in advance, per USDA.
Video
Notes
- Optionally, add 1 Tablespoon of minced red onion for more flavor and crunch.
- I recommend sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil for more flavor, and when possible, buying sulfite-free tomatoes.
- For Whole30: Use my compatible dairy-free pesto, compatible mayo, and sugar-free and sulfite-free tomatoes.
- For Low Carb: Use sugar-free tomatoes and sugar-free mayo.
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