Day 350 - Wine Country Chicken Salad with Cranberries and Pecans

A few days ago a review reader commented and said that this WINE COUNTRY CHICKEN SALAD was one of her very favorite products at Trader Joe’s and said that I needed to review it.  So off we went to the Alexandria, Virginia Trader Joe's to pick some up!  (Note:  I am not always that fast at picking up on product suggestions, but chicken salad sounded so good when it was mentioned…)

You suggest it, I go buy it, eat it, and review it!  Yes m'aam/sir!  

Before I write the review, I must share a quote my dad likes to say.  None of us really understand why he says it or even what it really means, but for some reason it is a traditional quote of his.  Here goes (cover your ears/eyes if you are easily offended):  “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.”

Yup.  That’s my dad.

My dad and I when I recently visited him in Omaha.

As for as this chicken salad from TJ’s goes, it turns out it was a great reader recommendation!  We both liked it.  Ingredients listed include:  chicken, mayonnaise, dried cranberries, pecans, yogurt, pineapple juice, honey, celery, and more.  When I looked at the salad I thought the cranberries were RAISINS (before reading the ingredients). 

Nice little plastic tub of yummy.

David says, “This is good.  This is a nice salad.  It has large chunks of white meat chicken which are nicely balanced with the cranberries and pecans.  There is enough celery to give it crunch.  There are little black bits in it, too, maybe poppy seeds?  And it is all tied together with a nice, loose liquid-y dressing of some kind.  If it were me I would have gone with a more mayonnaise-y type thing.  But this is definitely nice.  It is somewhat sweet.  I would give it a 4.25.”

As for me, I typically like my chicken salad “bland” – i.e. without raisins, grapes, and other “fancy crap” in it.  Normally I say just give me chicken, mayo (with no foo foo stuff in it) and let me have at it.  Someone in my childhood used to make “foo foo” chicken salad and I never really liked it and the look of this one brought back memories of that yucky chicken salad from my childhood (chicken salad flashbacks!!).  So this product could have been a big fail for me, but…  It was not!

Deeeelicious!

I first had it on a toasted mini TJ’s bagel topped with this chicken salad and avocado.  It was DELICIOUS!  Very good!  It totally hit the spot.  It was not TOO anything – not too sweet, not too mayonnaise-y, not too runny…  It is really a great chicken salad!

It was messy, but I can’t fault it for that.  The chicken chunks are big but not overpoweringly so – they are manageable.  The only thing I would say could be improved about this product is the LID:  it was difficult to get off. 

Not cheap, but really good.

We later had the remaining chicken salad in a lettuce salad (and ate some by the forkful right out of the plastic tub).  Anyway we served it, it tasted really yummy. 

I would give this a 4.75.   

Price - $4.99

Rating (average of 2 raters) - 4.5