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Chicken salad, easy on the mayo | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper
Posted on: Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Chicken salad, easy on the mayo

 •  Fresh roasted tomatoes

By Elaine Magee

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

This chicken salad sandwich would weigh in at 1,600 calories if you used the original recipe. Using just a little light mayonnaise and stretching it with fat-free sour cream cuts the calorie count to 622 — less, if you skip the brie.

Elaine Magee

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Q. This spring weather has inspired our family to make some fun sandwiches for dinner. We are looking for an interesting chicken sandwich recipe. My husband loves lots of mayonnaise on his sandwiches, though. Any suggestions?

A. Your husband isn't the only one who insists on blankets of mayo on his sandwich; I see it happen all the time. There's one technique we can use that might help. We can make a mixture of mayonnaise (you dial in the type you have at home — for example, it's light mayo in my house) and fat-free sour cream. This way he has the look of lots of mayonnaise but we've really diluted it with the neutral-tasting fat-free sour cream.

Then we use the light mayo mixture for a chicken salad that includes skinless chicken breast, walnuts, celery and diced green apple. One slice of the whole-grain sandwich bread is served with the chicken salad while the other slice is topped with cranberry sauce and slices of brie. It's beautiful and delicious and much lighter than the Food Network recipe that inspired this sandwich.

The original Food Network recipe (calling for twice as much brie, a cup of mayonnaise and 4 tablespoons of butter), which inspired this lighter sandwich contains: 1,600 calories, 98 grams of fat, 28 grams of saturated fat and 173 mg cholesterol per sandwich.

CRANBERRY BRIE CHICKEN SALAD SANDWICH

  • 1/4 cup light mayonnaise (or similar)

  • 2/3 cup fat-free sour cream

  • 1 heaping tablespoon Dijon mustard

  • Juice from 1/2 lemon

  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (add more to taste if desired)

  • 2 cups shredded or diced chicken breast — roasted or grilled, boneless, skinless

  • 1/2 cup walnut pieces, toasted in dry skillet until lightly brown

  • 2 celery stalks, small diced

  • 1 green apple, cored and diced

  • 8 slices whole wheat sourdough bread (or other whole grain bread)

  • 1/2 cup cranberry sauce

  • About 4 ounces brie, thinly sliced

    In medium bowl, combine light mayonnaise, fat-free sour cream, mustard, lemon juice and black pepper. Stir in the remaining chicken salad ingredients (chicken breast, walnuts, celery and apple).

    Lightly toast 4 pieces of the bread. Spread 1 tablespoon of cranberry sauce over each of these 4 slices of bread. Top that with thinly sliced brie. Pop under the broiler briefly (watch carefully) just to lightly melt the brie. Meanwhile, toast the remaining 4 pieces of bread.

    Top the plain toasted slices with one-fourth of the chicken salad mixture and serve each of these with one of the slices topped with cranberry and brie.

    Makes 4 sandwiches.

  • Per large sandwich (with brie): 622 calories, 38 g protein, 70 g carbohydrate, 21 g fat, 6.5 g saturated fat, 7.4 g monounsaturated fat, 7 g polyunsaturated fat, 96 mg cholesterol, 8 g fiber, 829 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 30 percent. Omega-3 fatty acids = 1.1 g, Omega-6 fatty acids = 5.8 g. Weight Watchers POINTS = 12

  • Per large sandwich (without brie): 540 calories, 32 g protein, 70 g carbohydrate, 16 g fat, 1.9 g saturated fat, 5.1 g monounsaturated fat, 8.2 g polyunsaturated fat, 68 mg cholesterol, 8 g fiber, 651 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 27 percent. Omega-3 fatty acids = 1 g, Omega-6 fatty acids = 5.7 g. Weight Watchers POINTS = 11

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