Let me introduce you to the chicken salad pinwheel which is not only colorful, fun, and delicious, but you can make a ton of it in advance, eat it for days, and it takes less than an hour to make.
In other words, it may just be the most perfect work/school lunch out there.
This salad gets even easier if you have some leftover chicken in your fridge. Any chicken will work, but you can just chop or shred it and proceed with the recipe. If you need to start from scratch though, just bring a medium pot of water to a simmer and then poach the chicken for about 15 minutes until it’s cooked through.
Then let the chicken cool and chop it finely or shred it with a few forks.
The key to this salad isn’t actually the chicken though. The key to it is the assortment of crunchy veggies that get mixed in with the chicken. You could use a wide range of veggies, but I kept it pretty simple with some celery, red peppers, scallion, and an apple.
You can just dice all the vegetables finely, but for the apple, toss it with some fresh lemon juice to prevent the apple from browning.
To finish off the chicken salad, whisk together the mayo, vinegar, and honey and then stir in the chicken, veggies, and dried cranberries. One batch of this salad should get you four wraps if you are using the large flour tortilla wraps. Of course, you can easily double or triple the salad recipe to make more wraps.
To make a wrap, just spread a layer of salad over a tortilla. Make sure it’s a thin layer since you need to roll it up.
Then roll the tortilla tightly and cut it in half.
Then cut each half into thirds and you should have six lovely pinwheel bites. Of course, you can eat the wraps whole, but I think it’s fun to cut them into pinwheels.
Store these in a cold spot until you eat them. This could be a fridge or you can use a to keep the pinwheels cool until lunchtime.
Chicken Salad Pinwheels Recipe Instructions
Chicken Salad Pinwheels Recipe
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 wraps (24 pinwheels)
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb chicken,shredded
- 1 stalk celery, minced
- 1/2 red pepper, minced
- 1 apple, peeled and diced
- 1/2 lemon, juice only
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon honey
- Salt and pepper
- 4 large flour tortilla wraps
Cooking Directions
- You can use leftover chicken for these pinwheels or lightly poach boneless skinless chicken in simmering water, covered, for about 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Then remove from the water, let cool, and shred or chop finely.
- Whisk together mayonnaise and honey and season with salt and pepper.
- Peel apple, core it, and dice. Toss apple with lemon juice to prevent browning.
- Mix together chicken, celery, red peppers, scallion, apple, dried cranberries, and dressing. Season the salad with salt and pepper.
- Spread about 1/4 of the salad onto a large flour tortilla in a thin layer. Tightly roll tortilla and cut it into sixths to create little pinwheels.
- Chill until served.
