This recipe is my favorite at the moment. I love this salad as a starter or side dish and it looks so appealing. Chicken and avocado salad is one of my favorite recipes and this combination is simply awesome. This chicken avocado salad recipe is easy to make at home and it requires chicken thighs, avocado, lime juice, onions, tomatoes, cilantro and some spices.
Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe (VIDEO)
This Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe has so much flavor! It’s creamy but light with the avocado and so satisfying. I know, I know chicken salad recipes usually have mayo but you will never miss it!
BONUS: If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, this chicken salad tastes just as good the next day – perfect for a to-go lunch. You all are always requesting good work and school lunch ideas and I hope you love this one!
Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe:
My son was particularly smitten with this chicken avocado salad and requested it for his birthday. It was in his top 3 requests. The other two were this shrimp dip and a cheesy breakfast sandwich. His birthday is coming up this weekend so I’ll be sure to make his dreams come true ;).
This chicken salad is a winner and it is well loved by adults and children. Everything about this is good and you’ll want that fresh lemon dressing on all of your salads.
Easy Chicken Salad Ingredients!!
This Avocado Chicken Salad has such simple ingredients and you may already have everything you need to make it (I just love when that happens)!
- We use rotisserie chicken to simplify the process but you can cook your own chicken breast
- If you are looking to cut the fat, use turkey bacon instead
- For extra protein, add 2 hard boiled eggs
How to Make this a Paleo Chicken Salad:
This salad is perfect for nearly every diet. To make this salad paleo friendly, sub the corn (which is considered a grain) with sliced cucumber.
How to Store Leftover Chicken Salad:
Cover chicken avocado salad with plastic wrap directly over the surface of the salad (keeping the air out will prevent browning of the avocados) and refrigerate.
How to Serve Chicken Salad:
This avocado chicken salad is deliciously versatile. It is a protein packed salad so it’s perfect for work lunch or meal prep and the lemon keeps it fresh and vibrant. Serve this chicken salad:
- As a main course salad
- In sandwiches or pita pockets
- As a filling for lettuce wraps
This is one of our very favorite salad recipes; seriously tasty and easy, hearty but feel good food at the same time.
Healthy Avocado Chicken Salad
Take chicken salad to a new level with the addition of avocado. This naturally creamy chicken and avocado salad is healthy and contains no mayo or sour cream.
Ever since I tried avocado in a grilled chicken sandwich, I can no longer have chicken without avocado. The creamy avocado compliments chicken so well and the addition of cilantro and lime make it a combo to die for. This creamy salad is great in sandwiches, wraps, or with a side of vegetables if you are on a diet.
I’ve added this salad to my healthy lunch rotation because the rotisserie chicken breasts are lean and a great source of protein, the avocado is packed full of nutrition and because no mayo or cream is added, you can enjoy the salad guilt-free.
Making this fresh and flavorful salad is as simple as combining avocado, shredded chicken, roasted corn and red onion. You can also add minced green onion, tomatoes, cucumber, or diced bacon. For the herbs, we used cilantro but dill or parsley also work very well too!
Chicken Avocado Salad
Total Time:30 MINUTES
Chicken Avocado Salad makes a great meal for one or as a side to share. A bed of greens is topped with delicious marinated, grilled chicken, bacon, tomatoes, cheese, avocados, and honey dijon dressing for a salad everyone will want to dig into.
For more salads that eat like a meal, check out my recipes for this Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Salad with Sweet Vidalia Dressing, this Mexican Street Corn Chicken Pasta Salad, or this Greek Avocado Pasta Salad.
Like it or not, sometimes we have to eat our greens. Kidding. I mean, I eat greens and veggies all the time. Okay often. Okay more often in certain seasons than others (fall and winter just scream carbs to me), but I do make an effort to eat the appropriate amount of servings of veggies a day. Sometimes it comes in small doses throughout the day like in a Skinny Zucchini Muffin at breakfast, or in some slaw I’m eating on my leftover carnitas at lunch, or in a roasted vegetable dish I have as a side or in a one-pan meal.
And then sometimes I just want to go ahead and get all my servings of good-for-you veggies in one delicious, nutritious meal. Call it watching what I eat. Call it trying to set a good example for the kids. Call it making room for all that holiday food I’m about to get in my face here very soon.
Call the reason what you will, but I call the meal delicious! With bite after crunchy, crispy bite of chicken, avocado, crisp lettuce, bacon, cheese, and tomatoes all topped with a spectacularly tangy dressing, I think your family will be calling on this meal to be in the rotation more often.
How do you grill chicken indoors?
There are two ways you can grill chicken inside. The first is on a grill pan. Get a grill pan with raised ridges that mimics the look of grill grates. The taller the ridges, the more grill marks you’ll get on your meat and the more the juices will run off the chicken into those ridge valleys.
The pans come in cast iron or in nonstick pans. The cast iron ones seem to grill better, in my opinion. Depending on your chicken breast’s thickness, you’ll need to grill on each side for about 5-10 minutes. Use a press that came with the pan or use a smaller pan to press the chicken into the ridges for more defined grill marks.
The second way to grill chicken indoors is to use an electric grill. Electric grills are small appliances (like waffle makers kind of) that you plug in to turn on. On some models, you’ll have to turn the chicken to each side to cook, and for other models, you’ll be able to put a lid down and cook both sides at once (like with a panini press). The kind that has a lid that closes and also cooks can’t really cook chicken bigger than about an inch thick. Cook for the same amount of time (5-10 minutes) depending on the meat’s thickness.
How do you make honey dijon dressing?
I LOVE Honey Dijon Dressing and put it on just about everything I feel like it would even remotely work with. Store-bought is fine, but you can make your own too! I like to make up a big batch of this dressing and store it in a glass mason jar in the fridge for when a craving hits.
It works great over leftover chicken sandwiches too, hint, hint!
Ways to customize this dish
The best thing about salads is that you can add or subtract ingredients as you see fit. Some of my favorite other ingredients I have made this salad with include:
- Feta or goat cheese instead of shredded cheddar or other shredded cheeses.
- Sliced black or green olives are also delicious in salads. Or, buy them pitted and whole and spread them around your dish if you are making a larger salad to share.
- Substitute tomatillo ranch or blue cheese dressing for honey dijon.
- Make up some guacamole to serve on the side instead of sliced avocados.
- Add craisins or another dried fruit to the salad.
- Sunflower seeds or slivered almonds lend a nice crunch to this Chicken Avocado Salad.
- English cucumbers (the kind with the tiny seeds you don’t have to remove) add a yummy crunch.
- Shredded carrots or corn both will add a touch of sweetness to this salad.
How to make it ahead of time
If you are planning on guests any time soon, this is a great dish to get out for a light lunch before a big meal. Simply grill or cook the chicken ahead of time and keep it in the fridge till you’re ready to eat. You can warm the chicken back up before slicing and putting on the salad, or it’s good cold as well.