New York Deli Chicken Salad Secrets – How To Make It The Best Way

This classic New York deli-style chicken salad is easy to make and perfect on sandwiches, with greens, or by itself!

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https://www.sipandfeast.com/new-york-deli-chicken-salad/

INGREDIENTS
3 large chicken breasts – about 1 1/2-2 pounds (680 – 900g)
2 tablespoons (26g) Better than Bouillon chicken base
1/2 cup (45g) celery finely – diced
1/4 cup (45g) onion finely – diced
1 teaspoon (6g) salt – plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon (14g) granulated sugar – plus more to taste
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 cup (220g) mayonnaise

VIDEO EDITOR:
Billy Mark: @bluecrestproductions

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today we’re going to make New York deli
chicken salad there are not too many
ingredients as you can see let’s get
into it right now New York deli chicken
salad what does New York deli chicken
salad mean well it means chicken with
mayo and a lot of flavor like all New
York Deli salads taste now why am I
going to listen to you Jim you don’t
know what the heck you’re talking about
well I worked in about four of these
places when I was young for a long time
I don’t think much has changed in the
New York Deli scene since I last worked
there now I will tell you simply that
unlike the potato and the macaroni that
we did and the Cole saw this recipe
varies from Deli to Deli they all do it
a little bit differently a lot of them
use canned chicken we’re not going to
use canned chicken today we’re going to
use real chicken uh chicken breast and
it’s not that canned chicken is not real
chicken it’s just that we’re going to
poach this make it very flavorful so
it’s nice and tender too for our chicken
salad so it’s not dry dry all right I
have four chicken breasts here but the
recipe just says 2 lb so sometimes you
get a bigger breast and you only need
three 2 lb that’s good we also have
onion now recipe says4 cup of you know
finely diced onion which is what I have
here that’s more than 1/4 cup we won’t
need all of it we’re going to soak it in
water to get rid of some of the really
strong onion flavor two celery ribs that
I finally diced 2 tpoon Dijon
mustard this is a/4 teaspoon of white
pepper so you know you can use black
pepper you just will see a lot of black
uh specks in it and then 1/ quart
teaspoon of garlic powder or I actually
have granulated garlic garlic powder is
a little bit more garlicky than
granulated garlic but pretty much you
can use them
interchangeably uh I have Helen’s
mayonnaise here um helman’s helman’s
Mayo not Helen
H helman’s mayonnaise I should know that
I live in the state that it’s the only
thing that’s sold helman’s mayonnaise
and this is actually the Mayo that is
going to be used in all Deli uh New York
Deli stuff but they’ll often use the big
containers of it they’ll use uh what’s
called decorator Mayo so it’s like even
thicker but this is fine this is going
to suffice you can even use some other
brands if you like it’s it’s going to be
okay and then kind of my secret weapon
here is 1 tbspoon of sugar now you don’t
want to use the sugar you can take it
out but it’s going to make it more
flavorful unfortunately or fortunately
whichever way you look at it delies use
a ton of sugar in all of their salads
that’s what made the other ones the
potato the Colo the Mac that you all
loved so great kind of unlock that
secret for you along with the brining of
it very simply take your onion um don’t
need all this we’ll see when we make it
after like I don’t have to use it all
put it in water this is going to just
take some of that really strong onion
flavor out of it you could use red onion
too which is a little milder as well but
it’ll just get rid of some of that
have a pan large like high enough walls
that you can fit your chicken in there
so they’re sub completely submerged just
fill it up with
water okay and then the chicken base
turn it up let’s bring it to a boil so
this is 1 tbspoon of this uh better than
bully on chicken base I use this in my
recipes all the time this is just going
to kind of amp up the flavor we want the
chicken when it poaches to absorb it if
you don’t have chicken base you can just
like make sure your water is very salty
so probably like a I would make it like
a 2% salt level okay so it is boiling
just mix it in let it all get
distributed this flavor is all going to
uh penetrate the chicken get into the
chicken and make it really
flavorful just get them in there gently
and you just like as I said before in
the beginning they need to be submerged
you really ideally want it to be like
one level cover back on okay so it’s
boiling turn off the heat and just take
it off of your burner set a clock set a
timer for 20 minutes okay 20 minutes is
minimum you can let it go longer than
that up to like 45 60 minutes but your
chicken will be fine it’s just don’t
uncover it just leave it covered 20
minutes minimum okay so it’s been like
22 minutes let’s see if it’s
okay I should have a cutting board that
has the grooves the juice grooves but I
don’t I didn’t come prepared today so
our poach chicken is very flavorful and
we’ll just check one right
away so listen it’s really hot right now
and you could just you know you can get
in there or you can let five five
minutes elapse but what we want to do is
we want to just break this chicken down
into uh bite-sized pieces for our
chicken salad kind of like that size but
if you want you know you can go finer
really dig in there whatever way you
like it you should do this while it’s
still steaming hot like this because we
want to put the spices on here and like
the seasoning the the sugar and it will
absorb better when the chicken is fairly
hot okay so just spread it out now and
then I have I have my 1/4 teaspoon of
garlic powder or granul garlic uh 1/4
teaspoon of black pepper and the sugar
so honestly it’s easier if I I should
have really did this I just wanted to
show you the ingredients but I should
just have a Shaker it will distribute
EAS here and to be honest with you even
after this you might need even a little
bit more sugar but you want to make
those adjustments really kind of the
next day or after a couple hours of it
melding together so what I like to do
now this is all on here you can put on
you know put on bro gloves if you want
just kind of move it around we just want
all of that sugar and the pepper and the
gar granulated garlic to absorb into the
chicken here so let this like sit for
about 10 minutes till it cools down you
can take like a a mes strainer it will
essentially soften the bite of the onion
so recipe coils with just a/4 cup of it
which is less than that so we got our
chicken in
here here’s our Mayo which what was it a
cup of mayo I think yeah so these these
amounts are correct but you know why was
I even telling you that it means that
you might have to put a little bit more
in especially the next day that is kind
of The Secret of this it’s not even that
good right now it has to be eaten at
least a couple hours it needs to go in
the fridge but ideally a day okay that’s
our celery so the onion I’m only going
to put in about that much maybe maybe
that that’s it and I really ate my words
on this channel I used to make fun of
the Bro gloves so listen if it’s a
little you know how that extra water was
in there the next day because you want
to have this the next day all you got to
do is you can just drain it a little bit
mix a tiny bit more Mayo in there and it
will thicken right up if you’re dead set
you want to have the Mayo that the
delies use just go to a restaurant
supply store and you can buy it now
listen I like the texture like that I
like it to have a good amount of texture
if you like it to be much more mushy you
can just get in here and you can just
start breaking some of these pieces
apart just with your hands like this
okay I actually do like a little bit of
a little bit more Mash shredded but you
do what you want I’m going to just go
like this I’m saying when I get it from
the deli I like it when it’s a little
shredded yeah know one place I worked at
they did it how I how I’m doing it here
the other place they use canned chicken
I think a lot of places use canned so
listen you you don’t want to eat it
right now like this you don’t want to
eat it when it’s warm or even like not
cold you want this overnight but minimum
get it in the fridge until it’s cold so
a couple hours I am going to just taste
it now and we can make a couple
adjustments to seasoning if we want now
that’s delicious already it’s going to
be way better but it doesn’t need
anything else cover it tightly with
plastic wrap and we’ll put it in the
fridge so it’s been about 2 hours I
again ideally overnight it’ll be so much
better it is cool now there’s a lot of
liquid in here so and it’s going to be
worse the next day you know you can
mitigate this somewhat by after you
poach it just really dry off the chicken
which I didn’t do but you can also just
drain it which is what I am going to do
right now so I just think like this and
you’ll just be able to push some of that
liquid out
hopefully want it to be like more like a
mass than really wet it’s almost like
when you go to the get it in the deli
it’s almost like dry well that’s what
I’m saying so that’s it’s the Mayo to
that they use but right here just even
this process of doing this it you can
see it’s going to start dry it gets to
it get starting to get a lot drier yeah
okay so I got a lot of liquid out of it
you can see how much drier that looks
now okay like this which is perfect
because if it’s too liquidy it’s going
to roll off the roll and whatnot but we
want to taste it now make sure that it’s
seasoned perfectly touch more salt and
honestly you probably could do more
sugar here but I’m not going to we’ll
see what the taste test are thingss a
little bit more black pepper not black
pepper white pepper sorry and now
because I drained a lot you can mix a
little bit more Mayo in here which is
going to increase the creaminess of
[Music]
it I’m going to serve this up on the
regular hard roll that James wants
hey James H look at this s holy
cow well um you want to put it down for
a
sec I think I didn’t do so bad instead
of explaining then giveing my rating I’m
going to give my rating then explain I
am going to give this a nine out of 10
okay thank you not not a 10 out of 10
because if it was colder I would give it
a 10 I knew that and because we were
waiting 30 minutes yeah no but it’s it’s
it’s very good the it tastes it tastes
like chicken salad and I love chicken
salad it’s it’s not just we were waiting
it would it wasn’t overnight yeah be
much better cold like I can’t I can’t I
I can’t give it an e though cuz it’s
still delicious but yeah cold is
everything for chicken salad yeah but no
it’s it it’s it’s really good like it’s
it’s chicken
salad like I I don’t know how else to
describe it Oh I thought you going to be
like it’s chicken salad everybody loves
it some people don’t like like chicken
salad yeah I mean ultimately the goal
the main thing is you have to drain it
the next day remember this wasn’t the
next day and then put the Mayo back in
and it will look like this which is
exactly how it will look at a deli
anything else to tell people no okay SC
yeah I think it would be good in a wrap
a wrap or melted Swiss I okay and that’s
it’s I think it’s the best on this and
you know these rolls I know you’re going
to ask me um you know know I’m working
on it I’m working on a recipe to make
these exactly how they do at uh you know
New York Deli but it’s been difficult