Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad

Delish! The best way to get any "crust" to stick is to flour the chicken/fish-whatever first, then dip into your liquid mix (eggs, dressing, etc), then coat with nuts/breading or whatever. The flouring first is the trick.

This salad is delicious! I found a way to keep your pecans on the chicken. I pounded the pecans so that they crumbled more. This helped them adhere much better. Only a few fell off from the bottom when baking. Also definately use basalmic vinegar dressing-the flavor is awesome with all the other ingrediants!!Hope this helps!!

Delicous! My favorite salad is Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad from TGIFs. Had one last night for supper. Made this for lunch and it was very similar. I also am not sure what creamy garlic salad dressing is so I used garlic ranch to coat the chicken. I also used chicken tenders and baked at 350 for about 20 minutes. Substituted original Craisins for the cranberries. Served with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. My husband is not a fan of blue cheese and complained when I added, but he rated the recipe a 5 and even admitted to me the mandarin oranges, craisins & blue cheese compliment each other along with the balsamic vinaigrette. (Served with TGIFs salad.) Next time I will chill the chicken in the fridge for about a half hour after I have the dressing and nuts on the chicken and then bake. It will hold the nuts better. Thanks

Umm, 70 g. of fat is not a light salad.

Positively delish! I made enough for 4 and my husband and I happily finished it off by ourselves. My personal notes: -It's just as good with Ranch dressing as without. -Creamy Ceasar dressing works great, since I didn't really know what garlic dressing was, being an amateur and all. -Even if you hate bleu cheese, just try a little. My husband loved it, and he can't stand bleu cheese. -Next time I'm going to put the chopped lettuce in a colander and drain the juice from the oranges over it. I just think it will give the lettuce an extra kick. Thanks for the recipe!

Tried this recipe for the first time last night and it was a big hit! Very light and refreshing. The mandarin oranges add just a hint of sweetness without being overpowering. I didn't even add the ranch dressing as the natural flavor was wonderful.

Great as a main dish on a hot summer day! I did not have creamy garlic dressing, so I used Ranch dressing to dip the chicken in before coating with the pecans, and that worked just fine.

This was a very good salad. However, next time I would either add Craisins or skip the cranberries altogether because they made it a little too sour. Also, I think a vinaigrette type dressing would have been better than the ranch. But, we really liked it, and the chicken came out very good. Also, we added candied walnuts and those really improved the salad as well.

I used the pecan crusted portion of this recipe the other night, it was DELISH. I added an egg to the dressing, as I was skitish about the stick of the pecans, and all was well. Thanks for an easy and delicious suggestion.

This recipe was a hit with my company ! I have been asked over and over for this recipe. The presentation is awesome and it's easy to make! Go for it!

Absolutely awesome! Great mix of flavors.

Scrumptious!! I didn't have time to do the crust, so I got a bbq chicken, shredded it, and just added the chopped pecans to the other ingredients, I also added a bit of the juice from the mandarins to the dressing. YUM!

This was awesome! Great combination and flavor. I used blue cheese dressing instead of ranch and gorganzola cheese. Yum, yum.

This was a good salad...not quite what I expected, though. I made a few changes per other reviewers: I used homemade balsamic viniagrette and mixed an egg in with the dressing to dip the chicken in. I also ran my pecans through the food processor until they were ground up fine like bread crumbs. Speaking of which, I threw a few bread crumbs in with the pecans to help form the crust. I was a little disappointed with the chicken, though. It didn't seem very flavorful to me. Could that be because I used Caesar dressing instead of Ranch? Dunno. I also added some candied pecans of my own (melt butter and brown sugar over low heat until combined, then toss with whole pecans and let rest). These went very well in the salad. Over all, a good idea for a salad. Thanks for sharing!

This is delicious. Replace the creamy salad dressing with a balsamic or low fat raspberry vinaigrette and sprinkle 1/2 cup of pecans over the salad instead of breading the chicken with them and you will have have a truly light salad. At 956 calories and 70g of fat, this does not qualify as light and should not be advertised as such.

I ended up using a full 2 cups of the chopped pecans. Next time, I think I'll do what another reader did, and that is to add an egg to the dressing-coating, because many of the pecans fell off, which wasn't bad because they all ended up in the salad anyway. Couldn't find creamy garlic dressing, so I used the jarred-refrigerated creamy Ranch dressing and added a clove of minced garlic. All in all, though, was very easy, and was awesome.

As one review stated, this salad is very much like TGIF's Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad. The only addition I made, is to add some chopped celery. Great summer salad.

This was SO GOOD! I did not have creamy garlic salad dressing so substituted Catalina. Very Very good. Made for a sweet salad and I loved the texture of the pecans. I also used clemintines instead of mandarines.

I agree with previous reviewers about getting the pecans to stick. I used flour, then egg, then a mixture of seasoned breadcrumbs and pecans. Turned out absolutely perfect!! Not quite the same thing as the recipe, but gave a great guideline.

Really delicious - only made a few changes. I substituted Honey Dijon Free dressing for the creamy garlic, and the can oF mandarin Oranges was with Splenda to cut down on the sugar content. Great mix of tastes, though the pecans had a rough time sticking to the chicken!!

I used LaRosa Brand creamy garlic dressing, this adds great flavor to the chicken. Candied Pecans add a little more sweetness.

I used chopped cashews instead of pecans. The chicken was the best baked chicken I've ever eaten.

Yummy!!!! I made a few changes though. I used as asiago creamy garlic dressing. I layered the chix in flour, then the dressing and then the pecans. the chix came out excellently and the pecans stuck nicely. I left the chix whole and place it on the side of the plate. I used fresh romaine lettuce, bl chz, craisins, mandarin oranges, a little bit of red onion and honey lime vinaigrette as the dressing for the salad. I did pour the mandarin orange syrup over the lettuce. The only thing I will do differently next time is I will use chix strips instead of chix breast. thank you for sharing this delicious salad. My boyfriend loved it. We will be having this again.

This is an excellent salad, I did make a couple changes, I marinated the chicken in a light ranch dressing and chopped garlic for 3 hours and then grilled it. I just added chopped pecans to the salad. This went extremely quick, rave reviews from everyone.

Similar to a salad I make, but I use crumbled goat cheese instead of bleu, and make a dressing w/balsamic vinaigrette, mayo, ginger, fresh garlic & cracked pepper, dash of nutmeg & pinch of dill weed. i also use half the amt. of creamy italian, and add two T.heavy whipping cream and omit the Ranch.Many good variations!

Yum-O! I used chopped walnuts instead of pecans, and it was fantastic! I used crumbled feta instead of bleu cheese and I floured and egged the chicken to make the nuts stick better. Will definetely make again!

The idea was very good but should use eggs instead of creamy dressing otherwise, the peacan crust cmoes off very easily when baking.

This reminded me of a wonderful salad I had in NYC that was a buttermilk pecan dressing over romaine with caramelized onions and sharp grated cheddar. So, I tried cheddar on this and it was great!

This is a good recipe to modify to suit your salad preferences... I left out the oranges since I don't like them in my salads, and used homemade balsamic vinaigrette instead of ranch. I already had Baked Honey Nut Chicken (recipe from here) in the oven when I decided to make into a salad, and it went well with this recipe's ingredients. I also added more veggies that I like in salads like cucumbers, carrots, and sweet peppers.

I made this recipe for my husband and I. It was great!! It did take some time to prepare, but in the end, worth it. This salad would be great for when having the "girls" over for lunch.

What a lovely salad. I made this for a luncheon I hosted and it was both pretty and delicious. I made a few changes by using the light creamy caesar dressing for the breading and a vinegrette for the dressing. Thanks for the recipe.

YUMMY! Even my 2 year old ate it!

I think the key to this recipe is refrigerating the chicken for a few hours after dipping it - it tasted just like a restaurant! I used a balsamic vinegarette on the chicken and as my dressing and it worked great. I prefer a vinegarette on this type of salad rather than ranch. I also used feta, which was delicious! I love this recipe at restaurants, so I am glad to have it for home now!

It was a good combination of flavor and textures.

We really love this recipe! We tried it with "light" dressings and substituted colby-jack for the bleu cheese (we never did like bleu cheese) and it turned out wonderful! Thanks for the recipe!

Flavor of the chicken was good, but it was the texture I didn't care for. I would have liked a crispier texture. I tried putting a small amt of maple over it & broiling it for a few minutes after baking, but it didn't crisp it up, although the maple did carmelize a bit & made it tasty.

This salad is so good - it's my new favorite! What a great blend of flavors, my favorite dressing on this salad is the Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette recipe from cathyrae on this site- it compliments all ingrediants of the salad. Thanks for sharing your salad recipe!

I had a heck of a time trying to get the pecans to stick to my chicken, and I even tried the add an egg trick and the flour trick. The egg made the pecans all stick to each other, but not to the chicken--it peeled off like skin. I added the pecan-skin to top my salad though, so no harm no foul. I couldn't find a dressing that I liked...ranch was way too creamy for this. I think a lite raspberry dressing might be good. 3 stars because of the whopping amount of fat for a "light" salad!

SUCCESS!

WOW! this was amazing- the only thing I did differently was to cut the chicken into strips before coating with pecans and cooking... It was so good! My boyfriend- who is not much of a chicken or a salad eater asked me when I would make it again! Thanks so much for an awesome addition to the recipe box!

This was delish. We had not a morsel left. The pecans on the chicken were the best! I did not change a thing. I would definetly make again.

I liked this salad, but would like to make a few suggestions. I do not think the garlic dressing is necessary or even adds that much to the dish, besides extra calories. An easy substitution I can think of off the top of my head is perhaps some fat free plain yogurt with a little garlic powder and fresh ground black pepper... You can play around with it or eliminate it all togehter. Also, for an additional crunch, you can add diced celery. It compliments the blue cheese as well. If you didn't want to pecan crust the chicken, you can add candied pecans to the salad.

I've been making this salad for about a year now and always get a thumbs up from my husband when I do (which is rare for salad). This time I made my own creamy garlic dressing with mayo and some cream. I added garlic salt and 2 crushed garlic cloves, some finely chopped basil and rosemary to it. I used to chop up the chicken before putting it on the salad, but this time I left it whole and that worked out much better (all the crumbs went into the salad). Also, I just threw Newman's Own Italian dressing on top and it tasted great.

Awesome. I used Ranch dressing for everything and added the egg to dressing as suggested to help pecans stick. Thanks for sharing this one!

I have a big issue with this salad. It has 70 grams of fat. No dish, especially a salad, should have that much. However, I decided to try it making a few easy adjustments to cut down on the fat. First of all, I used fat free dressings instead of the full on fat variety. I also bought oranges in juice and not in syrup, which doesn't change fat content but does make it a little healthier. Lastly, I substituted cheddar cheese for the blue cheese. I followed one reviewer's suggestion to lightly flour the chicken to help the pecans stick. It worked but made for a pasty texture that I did not care for. If I make it again, I will try the egg in the dressing or leave it unbreaded and sprinkle pecans on the salad. I also think that next time I will use the Ranch dressing to coat the chicken and the garlic to top. I also followed another reviewer's suggestion and used Craisins instead. That worked well. It was an easy salad to make but I wasn't all that impressed.

COULDN'T FIND CREAMY GARLIC SALAD DRESSING. JUST USED EGG & MILK. WILL FINELY CHOP THE PECANS MORE NEXT TIME. DON'T CARE FOR BLUE CHEESE SO SUBED WITH FETA GARLIC. ALSO USED HONEY MUSTARD INSTEAD OF RANCH. FABULOUS! THANKS FOR SHARING THIS RECIPE LIANAD!

Wonderful! Followed other cook's suggestion to dredge the breasts in flour before the dressing and the nuts. Used 3 different nuts on the chicken - 25 min in the oven was perfect. Son found the melange of flavors in the whole salad to be a little too much but he loved the chicken. The adults loved the whole package! Will definitely repeat this one.

My family loved this salad, even my 3 & 5 year old girls. I used more pecans than called for, but otherwise followed the recipe to the letter.

Great salad- we modified it a bit. We used feta, instead of bleu cheese, and rolled the chicken in the dressing and then the pecans. It turned out great, but my husband said next time he'd rather use something other than the dressing to roll the pecans in, because it got kind of mushy on the bottom when it was cooking. Overall, it was great, and I will make it again!

This salad was incredibly delicious! I could easily eat this once a week or more. You can bet I'll be making this one again and passing it along to friends.

Has anyone served this salad with the chicken totally cooled, room temp or refrigerated after cooking?

We LOVE this easy refreshing summer salad. We substitute other things we have on hand for the oranges such as apple slices, cantaloupe, watermelon or a combination.

Put pecans on the salad rather than coat the chxn

coat with blue cheese dressing, grind the pecans, then coat and chill before baking--dependig on the thickness 20-30 mins. top rack. yum

Used ranch in place of "creamy garlic" as I couldn't find it in the store and didn't feel like making it. The recipe turned out great. I also used pretty thick chicken breasts which required closer to 35 minutes of cooking time.

This made a great dinner! I did make some alterations for our taste buds. I coated the chicken in flour, then egg, then crushed pecans. I pan fried the chicken in about 2 tablespoons of EVOO and added hard boil eggs to the salad.