Creamy Chicken Salad (With Mayonnaise)

This traditional Creamy Chicken Salad made with mayonnaise is a cool and refreshing lunch for a hot day! Serve it with your favorite bread or try your hand at making homemade breadstick bread

It’s hard to believe it’ll be 7 months since I moved back to Pittsburgh.

Maybe I’m just destined to be a suburban girl, but four years in the country at what ended up being a dead end job was enough for me.

As with starting any new adventure, there are a few things I do miss about living in the country since moving back.

For starters, I miss some of the few close friends I made (as it was hard for me to get close to anybody because I was so different).

I miss the roadside farm stands and the little Mennonite markets where I could get fresh Pennsylvania Dutch-based food. I was just telling a friend the other day about Amish potato salad.

I also miss some of the local restaurants. One place had the best corn fritters ever (and no matter how hard I tried, I still can’t recreate them at home).

Then there’s a local burger place with milkshakes that I often stopped at on my way home from Saturday shopping.

And finally, a local pizza place that made these amazing Chicken Salad Breadstick Sandwiches.

The first time I heard about them, I didn’t know what breadstick sandwich meant. Turns out the bread was made of breadstick dough rather than your typical sandwich or hoagie bread. In other words, it’s your choice of filling served between a fat breadstick cut in half.

I’m the type who’d rather eat a dozen breadsticks from the pizza place than eat the pizza itself.

Turning them into sandwich bread was one of the best culinary ideas I’ve ever heard of. And now, I found a way to make this a reality in my own kitchen so you and I can enjoy Creamy Chicken Salad on breadstick bread together.

When I visit somewhere new, I like to scout out the local food and avoid chain restaurants whenever possible (because I can go to McDonald’s any day of the week).

Shortly after I moved, I started asking my coworkers some good places to eat. I heard several suggestions for breadstick sandwiches. Breadsticks? I like breadsticks!

I didn’t even know what breadstick sandwiches even meant, but I was eager to find out.

At the restaurant, you could get your choice of filling. I did try it a few times with their breaded chicken strips, but soon I fell in love with their creamy chicken salad.

I’m really picky with chicken salad as it has to be creamy with that familiar taste of mayo (but not taste like you dipped a spoon in mayo). No nuts. No dried cranberries. And certainly no grapes.

Their chicken salad with mayo was extra special as it had relish in it, so naturally I added that to my own chicken salad recipe.

It got to the point where my coworkers would ask, we are ordering lunch from the local pizza place – want anything? And when I said yes, they already knew I wanted my usual chicken salad breadstick sandwich.

Unbaked dough, scored into 6 pieces. Apparently I’m not good at making rectangles.
The day before I moved, I ate my final breadstick sandwich and said goodbye to my favorite sandwich ever.

Of course being the foodie I am, I knew I would eventually recreate it. This recipe is not a copycat but rather my interpretation (as I wish I had taken better notes before I moved). I took my favorite breadstick recipe and cut them fat enough to become sandwiches (see above photo).

Then I made creamy mayo-based chicken salad with relish and onion. I love a lot of onion in mine for crunch.

If you are not a mayo lover, feel free to adjust the chicken salad to your liking as the concept is more important.

You can also fill the breadstick bread with buffalo chicken salad or hummus chicken salad.