The Original Chick-fil-A Chicken Salad Recipe

I have been in possession of this recipe for a while now.  And this is NOT a knock off recipe.  This is the actual recipe for Chick-fil-A chicken salad, directly from Chick-fil-A themselves.   I have been a fan of this chicken salad for as long as I can remember.  And then one day a little over a year ago, upon ordering my usual chicken salad sandwich, the cashier told me they would only be offering their famous chicken salad for just a few more weeks before they took it off the menu forever.  I was devastated, but she gave me a card with the original recipe on it.  And I have held on to that recipe for a while now.  I stumbled across it again just the other day and thought I would share it here in case you, like me, are missing this yummy treat. 

Chick-fil-A always served their chicken salad on toasted bread with lettuce, but serve it as you see fit.  It's an easy recipe and is sure to bring back some good memories.  Enjoy!

Original Chick-fil-A Chicken Salad

4 Chick-fil-A chicken breasts (original or grilled), cooled and cut into 1 inch cubes

2.5 oz. celery (approximately 1.5 full stalks, washed, trimmed, and cut into 1 inches pieces)

1/3 cup sweet pickle relish

1/2 cup mayonnaise

2 hard boiled eggs (cooled and peeled)

1. Using a food processor, mix chicken, celery, mayonnaise, and relish on low/ medium for 5 seconds.
2. Begin adding eggs, one at a time, and continue processing for up to 10 additional seconds, or until salad is chopped to desired consistency. 

Total processing time needed is 10-15 seconds. 

Yield: Approximately 3 cups

Pineapple Coconut Strawberry Cake

This is a fun twist on a traditional coconut cake recipe. In addition to the sweet coconut that is everyone's favorite, it's also got a yummy pineapple filling and it's topped with juicy, ripe strawberries! Who can beat that?

This would be the perfect cake to bring to your next family get-together.

Pineapple Coconut Strawberry Cake

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
2 eggs

Pineapple Filling

8 oz can crushed pineapple
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

1 stick butter, room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
4-5 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp regular milk
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Decorations

Additional shredded sweetened coconut for decorating cake, if desired
Fresh strawberries for decorating cake

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2, 9" cake pans. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add butter, milk, and vanilla. Beat with a mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary. 
4. Add eggs and beat for an additional 3 minutes.
5. Divide batter into prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Then, loosen the sides of the cakes from the pans and turn out onto cooling racks for another 10 minutes.

Pineapple Filling

1. Add ingredients for the pineapple filling to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir well to combine.
2. Cook, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens and looks glossy, about 5-8 minutes.
3. Pour filling into a storage container. Place a piece of plastic wrap gently over the top and allow it to cool.
4. Once cooled, cover it with an airtight lid and refrigerate until you're ready to use it (up to 1 week).

Frosting

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth.
2. Add powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of regular milk. Mix until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add a little more milk, to thin, or powdered sugar to stiffen, if needed, until you reach your desired frosting consistency.
4. Stir in coconut flakes.

Cake Assembly and Decoration

1. Place your first cake layer on a cake plate. Spread the pineapple filling over it, making sure not to spread it all the way to the edges. 
2. Top with the second cake layer.
3. Frost the sides and top of the cake. Sprinkle the top with extra coconut and press it into the sides, if desired.
4. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. 
5. Decorate the top of the cake with fresh strawberries before serving.

Notes

This cake only has one extra step of making a filling to go between the layers. (Most cakes just have the cake and the frosting.) But if that looks daunting to you and you want to simplify the recipe even further, there's nothing stopping you from using a yellow cake mix as the base of this cake.

This is an easy cake to make in advance and then decorate the next day. After your cake has cooled completely, place the layers in Ziploc bags and store them in the refrigerator (or even in the freezer for up to one month). Guess what? Frozen cakes are easy to frost!

You can place the pineapple filling and frosting in separate containers in the refrigerator until you're ready to use them. Remove the coconut frosting from the refrigerator about an hour before you’re going to frost your cake to allow it to come to room temperature.

You might be tempted to place the strawberries on the cake right after you frost it and just before you put it in the refrigerator to rest. However, they might bleed strawberry juice onto your pretty white frosting. This step is best left to do right before serving your cake.

Store this cake in the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving. It tastes better after it's been in the refrigerator. 

It's Now or Never Quick Bread

You might be thinking this is a weird name for a baked good, but it's actually the perfect thing to call it. Why? Well, because most recipes are named after their main ingredients.

How This Recipe Got Its Weird Name

But, the way this recipe works is that you determine the main ingredient based on what you have right now that you need to use up. You can use any type of fruit or nuts or baking chips as the main ingredient in this recipe.

You know how you sometimes go to the grocery store and you buy a pint of blueberries because they were on sale? No? Well, I tend to do this because they are my son Aidyn's favorite fruit.

Well, this week, those same blueberries were still staring at me from the refrigerator at the end of the week, and I hadn't done a darn thing with them. Then, I remembered this recipe . . . .

But spring time is upon us and that is a wonderful time for you to save this recipe too! Before you know it, we'll all be inundated with fresh fruits from roadside stands, farmers' markets, berry picking farms, and if we're lucky, maybe even from our own gardens.

It's hard to resist! We've waited all year for our favorite fruits to come back into season, and this recipe is the perfect thing to make with them when you've got a few pieces of fruit sitting in the crisper drawer in your refrigerator and you're not sure that fruit will make it another few days.

So, that's the story behind the name - it's now or never - get it? Even though Elvis was talking about his love, your fruit also won't wait. :-)

It works with whatever you  happen to have on hand. That's the beauty of the recipe!

It's Now or Never Quick Bread

2 bananas (overripe)
1/3 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups of chopped fruit, nuts, or baking chips (2 cups total, can be a mixture - do not include melons)

1. Spray a 9 x 5 loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mash bananas and mix with melted butter in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add sugar, egg, and vanilla. Mix together.
4. Add baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix together.
5. Add flour and mix.
6. Fold in mixture of chopped fruits, chopped nuts, and baking chips. (This mixture may vary each time you make the recipe.)
7. Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
8. Cool for 5 minutes in pan and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes:

I usually save extra overripe bananas in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag in my freezer. That way, I always have them on hand for baked goods like this.

If the fruits you choose are particularly juicy and the bread doesn't want to hold together, it will still make an excellent "fruit crumble" topping for ice cream.

30 Sweet Quick Breads That You Can Make With This Recipe

So now that you have the basic recipe, you can see where you could make all different kinds of quick breads. The possibilities are endless! Here are some interesting combinations to get you started:

1. Blueberry and pecan
2. Blueberry and apple
3. Blueberry and peach
4. Blueberry and raspberry
5. Strawberry and peach
6. Strawberry, blueberry, and blackberry
7. Blackberry and walnut
8. Raspberry and pecan
9. Peach and almond
10. Apricot and coconut
11. Apricot and walnut
12. Pineapple and walnut
13. Pineapple and strawberry
14. Pineapple and coconut
15. Pineapple and cherry
16. Apple and walnut
17. Apple and raisin
18. Cranberry and orange
19. Cranberry and almond
20. Cherry and almond
21. Pear and walnut
22. Strawberry and chocolate chips
23. Strawberry and peanut butter chips
24. Blueberry and white chocolate chips
25. Raspberry and white chocolate chips
26. Peach and white chocolate chips
27. Pineapple, coconut, and white chocolate chips
28. Apple, raisin, and cinnamon chips
29. Cranberry, orange, and cinnamon chips
30. Cherry, almond, and dark chocolate chips

How to Freeze Quick Bread For Later

If you don't want to eat your quick bread right away, you can freeze it. Make sure to cool it completely, then you can wrap it securely in aluminum foil and label it with the name and date. Freeze it for up to 3 months and thaw completely before serving.

If you like quick breads, you might want to take a peek at these other popular Harris Sisters' recipes:

• Sweet Potato Pecan Bread
• Super Moist Pumpkin Bread
• Nutella Banana Swirl Bread
• Cranberry Zucchini Bread

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Reflections

Hi there, friends.  Just checking in and feeling like it's time to catch up again.  Last year around my birthday I posted a similar entry of random thoughts and reflections.  And while I don't always post these thoughts publicly, I do certainly entertain them- especially around the old birthday each year.  So here's a snippet of what's happening with me lately.

Age is just a number, or so they say. My number now stands at 43 and I'm completely ok with that. I would rather my number go up than be up. In fact I spent the past year thinking I was already 43. (Isn't that something that old people do?) In any case, I have either squandered the year or gained one, depending on your perspective.

Birthdays will always, always make me a little nostalgic. Each one my own personal New Year's Day as the old year passes away and a new one lies before me. I always find myself taking a trip down memory lane to remember what has brought me here, lingering on the good stuff and skimming quickly past a few things too...

Speaking of perspective, the passing of time surely lends you that. I have discovered that I am quite possibly the least competitive person I know. I love throwing stuff away but I'm also deeply sentimental. I am a fall/ winter person. Give me a chill in the air or even some snow and I'm a happy girl. I spent the majority of my adult life thinking I wouldn't be a mother. But now that I am one, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I love being a mom. Lexi's mom. Yes, it defines me in many ways, but I am humbled to be a part of the magic that happens daily.

I know me very well. And there is a comfort that comes with that; a confidence. I am a speaker by profession, a talker by extension, though at my core I am rather shy. I am a thinker. A listener. Sometimes even a doer. I am a dog person, really just an animal person. I love deeply. I care deeply. I strive to be the best version of me that I can be. I'm not there yet, but as long as He's still working on me, I try to give myself a little slack.

I dance in public. I sing out loud. (Lexi tells me I sound like Elsa- from Frozen, though I'm pretty sure Idina Menzel isn't too worried. Bless her heart and the innocence of youth.) I talk to most everyone. About most everything. I can even hold my own in some sports conversations and most things related to preschool youngins. But only religion and politics with those I know very well.

I am southern through and through. Manners, respect, charm, chivalry. I love the south, real ladies, true gentlemen, grits, handwritten thank you notes, collard greens, country roads, potato salad, the smell of tobacco and earth, peonies, gardenias and magnolia blossoms. Cornbread should never be sweet but tea always is. If there was ever anyone born too late, it was me. I would have been in my hey day in the 1950s.

My name isn't that long. 6 letters. Short on the page but long on the tongue. As such, people have always shortened my name. D is the most common, and I always respond to it. Daddy is the only person on earth who still calls me Annie. When he says it, it sounds right and I know exactly who he is talking to (or about). If ANYONE else were to call me Annie, it wouldn't register at all.

I have about 12 umbrellas in my car but rarely use any of them. And when it's truly pouring down, there is never one within arm's reach. I am not a morning person. I don't understand people who are. My day starts with coffee (lots of cream, no sugar) and ends with wine. (Red. Cab sav, please.) I do, however, switch to white in the heat of the summer. I'm not a monster.

I don't eat cheese, even on my pizza. Never have.

I am 5' 7.5". I have always rounded that up to 5' 8". People have long thought I am much taller than that, I'm sure because I almost always wear heels. If you catch me in tennis shoes or flip flips, you will realize quickly that I'm not a close to 6' as you may have thought. Though my mom was and she still wore heels daily too.

There is beauty in everything. If you look. Really look.

I have my Grandma Elizabeth's green eyes and my Mama's freckles. I also inherited my mom's cooking abilities (which she would have been the first to admit were less than.) But I do have the handwritten copies of all of Grandma Elizabeth's famous recipes, and every time I make her chicken soup or coconut pie, I still feel like maybe I can cook a little after all. One day I will see them both again on the other side and I have a feeling we will all have a good laugh about my cooking abilities. For that moment I cannot wait.

Life is short. Do the good stuff now. Eat, drink, be merry. Use the good china. Dance. Pray. Burn the candles. Use the pretty towels. If they get soiled, wash them. (Duh.) Respect your elders. Listen to their stories. Remember. **Respect everyone.** Travel. Sightsee. Leave only footprints. Take only memories. Love is all around. Grab onto it and hold on tight.

I'm pretty sure differential equations is loooong gone, but by golly I know every song, every lyric, every note to the Frozen soundtrack. And I'm completely ok with that too.

43, here's to us.

And if that wasn't enough for you, here's the click for the entry I wrote last year.