My daughter-in-law in St. Louis sent me a recipe for using up my leftover Thanksgiving turkey and we all loved it. This salad combines sweetened, orange-flavored fresh cranberries and crisp almonds to dress up some leftover turkey.
Since I used up all the turkey to make the salad right after Thanksgiving, I thought I’d make another batch for dinner today using chicken breast. It was delicious. It’s a very easy recipe to put together and makes wonderful sandwiches. Her recipe called for wheat bread slices, but I had some good bakery dinner rolls on hand and they worked well, too.
Make up the cranberry mixture and refrigerate a couple of hours ahead of time to get the best flavor.
Dee-Dee’s Turkey (or Chicken) Salad with Fresh Cranberries
½ cup fresh cranberries
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 Tblsp. orange juice
1 Tblsp. grated orange zest
2 cups cooked turkey (or chicken breast), chopped
2 Tblsp. parsley, chopped
2 green onions, tops and tender green parts, sliced
¾ cup mayonnaise
Salt/pepper to taste
¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted
4 wheat bread slices, dinner rolls or bread of your choice
4 large red-leaf lettuce leaves
In a food processor with metal blade, process cranberries with sugar, orange juice and orange zest, using on-off pulses until coarsely chopped. Transfer mixture to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate several hours.
In a medium bowl, combine turkey, parsley, green onions, mayonnaise and salt/pepper. Mix well and refrigerate until ready to serve. At serving time, stir the cranberry mixture and almonds into the turkey/chicken mixture and spoon onto bread slices. Top with lettuce. Makes 4-6 servings.
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I wish you a Merry Christmas. Thanks for all the joy you bring to your blog followers
I’m so glad you gave us this recipe! I just took a big ol’ turkey out of the smoker for tomorrow night and we won’t eat it all – so I’m making this with pecans instead of almonds but the rest of the recipe sounds incredible!!
Merry Christmas. I do like your green background. I am going to give this a try.
I love the combination of turkey ( or chicken ) with cranberries! This recipe sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing.
That looks delicious. I buy chicken breasts from Zaycon and can some/freeze some. Well Stacey cans mine for me, but you know. Anyway, this looks like a great way to serve some of those chicken meals. I love chicken salads, and I love cranberries.
I wanted to wish you a happy holidays and happy new year, Lillian! This recipe looks amazing! I love chicken salad!
Thank you for all of your great tips! I love your blog!!! Merry Christmas!
Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy New Year.
This looks delicious already… i will give it a try thankyou for sharing