One of my favorite culinary tricks is to take food from one meal and turn it into something completely different. I've never been one of those people who can eat the same thing meal after meal (both my father and Scott can happily eat from the same batch of chili for an entire week). So refreshing my leftovers becomes a necessity if I don't want to waste food or let things go bad.
The chicken salad you see above is a perfect example of this leftover revamp. Yesterday at lunch time, I ran home to my apartment to pull together something to eat. I didn't want to eat the chili (you thought I was kidding) because I knew that it was on the schedule for dinner but I still needed something fast. I grabbed the last of the chicken I had roasted Sunday night (I did three bone-in chicken breasts with a fresh bay leaf tucked under the skin) and gave it a rough chop. I tossed it in the plastic container you see above and added three chopped celery ribs, half a diced red onion and two-thirds of a red pepper.
The dressing is a little bit of mayo mixed a bunch of fat-free Greek yogurt (if you haven't tried Greek yogurt, you've got to give it a taste as it's super creamy and less tart than the conventional stuff). I sprinkled in some salt, pepper, garlic powder (say what you will, in a pinch I love it) and some fresh dill. I ate about half of what you see there over some baby greens for lunch and I'm planning on having the rest for lunch today (it was so yummy that I don't mind having it two days in a row).
What's your go-to leftover refresh recipe?
10 More Dirty Restaurant Tricks
5 Things You Didn't Know About Turducken
10 Catchiest Food Jingles We Love to Hate
