Healthy Chicken Salad Recipe With Greek Yogurt and Grapes

This healthy chicken salad recipe keeps everything you like about the deli classic, the creamy dressing, the crunch, the little pops of sweetness, but most of the mayo is replaced with thick Greek yogurt. With cooked chicken on hand it takes 10 minutes to mix, and each cup comes in around 329 calories with 41 grams of protein.

I don’t cut the mayo out entirely. Two tablespoons for the whole batch is enough to keep that rich, rounded flavor that an all-yogurt dressing never quite gets. If you want to go all the way, there’s a mayo-free version further down.

Healthy Chicken Salad Recipe

Prep: 10 minutes  |  Chill: 30 minutes  |  Makes: 4 servings (about 1 cup each)

Ingredients

• 1 lb (454 g) cooked chicken breast, diced (about 3 cups)
• 3/4 cup (170 g) plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• 2 tbsp (28 g) mayonnaise
• 2 celery stalks (80 g), finely diced
• 1/2 cup (75 g) red grapes, halved
• 1/4 cup (30 g) walnuts, toasted and chopped
• 2 tbsp (20 g) red onion, minced
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp yellow mustard
• 2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Method

1. Pat the cooked chicken dry and dice it into 1/2-inch pieces, or shred it with two forks.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper until smooth.
3. Add the chicken, celery, grapes, red onion and dill, and fold until every piece is coated.
4. Taste and adjust the salt and lemon, then chill for 30 minutes so the flavors settle.
5. Stir in the walnuts just before serving so they stay crunchy.

Per serving (about 1 cup): 329 calories, 41 g protein, 14.5 g fat. Calculated from USDA FoodData Central values for each ingredient at the weights listed above.

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Why This Version Tastes Better Than Most “Healthy” Chicken Salads

Most lightened-up chicken salads fail in one of two ways: they taste sour because the yogurt is doing all the work, or they turn watery by day two. A few small choices fix both.

• A 6:1 yogurt-to-mayo ratio. Greek yogurt brings body and protein; the small amount of mayo rounds off the tang. Mayonnaise is about 680 calories per 100 g, so keeping it to 2 tablespoons saves a lot without losing the flavor.
• Dry chicken. Patting the chicken dry, especially if it was poached, is the single biggest thing that keeps the dressing thick instead of soupy.
• Mustard and lemon. A teaspoon of mustard and a tablespoon of lemon make the dressing taste seasoned rather than just creamy.
• Toasted walnuts, added late. Two minutes in a dry skillet makes them taste twice as nutty. Stirring them in at the end keeps them crisp.

The Best Chicken for Chicken Salad

Any cooked chicken breast works, so use what’s easiest:

• Rotisserie chicken is the fastest route and has the most flavor. Pull the breast meat and skip the skin. Store-bought rotisserie chicken is often salted, so taste before adding all the salt.
• Poached chicken is the most tender. Cover the breasts with cold water in a pot, add a pinch of salt and a bay leaf, bring to a bare simmer, then cover and cook gently until the thickest part reaches 165°F. Let it cool in the liquid so it stays juicy.
• Leftover roasted or baked chicken from a meal prep batch works too. If you cook chicken on Sundays, our chicken and rice meal prep makes extra breast meat easy to set aside.

Diced chicken gives you neat, chunky salad that holds up in a sandwich. Shredded chicken soaks up more dressing and feels creamier. Both are good; it’s personal preference.

How to Make Chicken Salad Without Mayo

Leave out the 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise and add 2 more tablespoons of Greek yogurt instead. That brings each serving to about 285 calories, 42 g protein and 9 g fat. Add an extra squeeze of lemon and a small drizzle of olive oil if it tastes too sharp. It’s a bit tangier, but with the dill and grapes most people won’t notice anything missing.

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Want it even lighter? Drop the walnuts and grapes and each serving lands at about 267 calories with 40 g protein (with the mayo still in). You lose some texture, so add an extra stalk of celery for crunch.

Is Chicken Salad Healthy?

It depends almost entirely on the dressing. Chicken breast itself is lean, about 165 calories and 31 g of protein per 100 g roasted, according to USDA data. Classic recipes that use a full cup of mayonnaise turn that lean base into a high-fat spread. Swapping most of the mayo for Greek yogurt keeps the creaminess while adding protein instead of fat, which is why this version is a solid lunch option. Pair it with something fiber-rich, like whole-grain bread or a big pile of greens, and you have a balanced meal.

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3 Flavor Variations

Keep the same chicken, yogurt and mayo base and change the mix-ins. The nutrition numbers above apply to the main recipe only.

Curry chicken salad

Whisk 2 teaspoons of curry powder into the dressing, swap the grapes for diced apple, and use cilantro instead of dill. Toasted almonds work well in place of walnuts.

Buffalo chicken salad

Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of hot sauce to the dressing, skip the grapes and walnuts, and add extra celery plus a sliced green onion. Great in lettuce cups.

Mediterranean chicken salad

Replace the grapes with diced cucumber, add a few chopped kalamata olives and a little crumbled feta, and use parsley with the dill. A pinch of dried oregano ties it together.

What to Serve With Chicken Salad

• Sandwich: on toasted whole-grain bread with lettuce and tomato.
• Lettuce wraps: spooned into butter lettuce or romaine leaves for a lighter lunch.
• Stuffed avocado or tomato: halve and scoop, then fill.
• Snack plate: with whole-grain crackers, cucumber slices and baby carrots.
• Over greens: a scoop on mixed greens with a little extra lemon.

For more ideas in the same spirit, see our healthy lunches you can make in 10 minutes.

Meal Prep and Storage

Chicken salad is one of the easiest lunches to prep ahead. FoodSafety.gov lists homemade chicken salad at 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator at 40°F or below, so one batch covers Monday through Thursday. Store it in an airtight container, and keep the walnuts in a separate small bag so they don’t go soft.

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Don’t freeze it. The same chart notes that chicken salads do not freeze well; the yogurt and mayo separate and the celery turns limp once thawed. If you want a freezer-friendly head start, freeze plain cooked chicken instead and mix the salad after it thaws.

If you’re building a full week of lunches, this pairs well with the bowls in our lunch meal prep ideas, and our chicken meal prep ideas have more ways to use one batch of cooked chicken.

Easy Swaps

• No grapes: use diced apple, dried cranberries (a tablespoon or two goes a long way) or halved cherry tomatoes for a savory take.
• Nut-free: swap the walnuts for toasted sunflower seeds.
• No red onion: use thinly sliced green onion or chives for a milder bite.
• No fresh dill: use 1 teaspoon dried dill, or fresh parsley or tarragon.
• Dijon instead of yellow mustard: works perfectly and adds a bit more bite.

Looking for more chicken dinners rather than lunches? Try our healthy chicken thigh recipes.

Sources

• USDA FoodData Central values via getfoodfacts.com: chicken breast, roasted (FDC 171477), Greek yogurt, plain, nonfat (FDC 170894), mayonnaise (FDC 171009), celery (FDC 169988), grapes (FDC 174683), walnuts (FDC 170187), onions (FDC 170000), lemon juice (FDC 167747), yellow mustard (FDC 172234), dill weed (FDC 172233)
• FoodSafety.gov, Cold Food Storage Charts