Keto Recipes Avocado Keto Chicken Salad (Ridiculously Good)
This creamy avocado keto chicken salad recipe proves that it’s definitely possible to make a delicious and satisfying salad that you can enjoy as a meal at any time of day. It’s absolutely loaded with healthy fats and protein, plus a great mix of healthy veggies that will have you feeling energized and ready to take on the day ahead.
When making this keto avocado chicken salad, the first thing you’ll want to do is prepare the creamy avocado and mayo salad dressing. It’s super easy to make; simply add your mayo, half an avocado, some lemon juice, and a bit of salt and pepper into a food processor and process everything together until it’s nice and smooth.
Adding in the avocado with the mayo helps to increase all of the satiating fat calories in your salad dressing, helping to make sure this salad will leave you feeling nice and full. Not only that, but the fats in avocados are of the heart healthy monounsaturated fatty acid variety, and they’re also a fantastic source of dietary fiber. Both of these factors combine to make avocados an excellent food to add to your diet for helping to protect against cardiovascular disease. (1)
Making keto-friendly salads is a great way to incorporate a variety of healthy greens into your keto diet. On top of that, you can even make quite a few protein-packed salad options like chicken salad that are highly satiating. But is chicken salad keto?
What Makes Chicken Salad Such a Popular Choice for Low Carb Diets?
The first thing that we’ll be taking a look at is just what it is that makes chicken salad such a popular low carb salad option in the first place. In no particular order, here are 3 of the main reasons why it’s so popular:
- Chicken salad is incredibly easy to make keto-friendly as it’s typically made with low carb ingredients like chicken, fresh dill, mayonnaise, garlic, and mustard.
- Chicken salad provides you with a solid amount of both protein and dietary fat (a one cup serving offers up 18 grams of fat and 19 grams of protein).
- Chicken salad also includes a variety of healthy, whole food ingredients that provide you with essential vitamins, minerals, and disease fighting antioxidants.
Is Chicken Salad Keto?
Chicken salad is definitely a 100% keto-friendly salad option.
Considering that it’s traditionally made with low carb ingredients like chicken, garlic, fresh dill, and mayo, most chicken salad recipes will also naturally end up being keto-friendly as a result. In addition, many of those ingredients also provide you with a wealth of fantastic health benefits, which makes this salad variety into one meal that’s definitely worth your while.
As long as you’re sticking to the basics when making your chicken salad, and adhering to a few common sense keto guidelines, then you can absolutely feel free to enjoy avocado keto chicken salad and other variations while on the keto diet.
Chicken Salad Nutrition Facts
Here is the approximate nutritional breakdown for a one cup (112 grams) serving size of a typical chicken salad (our keto avocado chicken salad is much lower in macros):
- 254 calories
- 18 grams dietary fat
- 19 grams protein
- 3.3 grams carbs
- 0.4 grams dietary fiber
- 2.4 grams sugar
- 64 mg cholesterol
- 226 mg sodium
- 208 mg potassium
Health Benefits of Chicken Salad
Since chicken salad is typically made with a handful of healthy, whole food ingredients, it also offers up some pretty great health benefits. Here are a few of the best ones that you can be gained by including chicken salad as part of your keto diet plan:
- Improved muscle growth and repair. Chicken salad is a great source of protein and essential amino acids. Not only does this protein content help with promoting muscle growth and repair, but it also helps you to feel satiated for longer after eating your salad, which may in turn help to prevent binge eating. (1)
- May provide protection against disease. Garlic and fresh dill are two of the most common ingredients that go into making a classic chicken salad. Both of those ingredients are actually well known for their antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties, which may help to reduce your risk of developing diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and more. (2)(3)
- Rich source of essential nutrients. Finally, the combination of ingredients that go into making a classic chicken salad also provides you with a wide variety of essential vitamins and minerals as well. Chicken salad is a great source of vitamins A, C, and D, potassium, iron, and calcium.
Keto Chicken Salad Substitutes
The keto diet actually offers you quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to preparing tasty and nutritious protein-packed salads. Along with chicken salad, here are a few other keto approved salad recipes you can also try:
- Egg salad
- Shrimp salad
- Greek salad
Creamy Avocado Keto Chicken Salad (Ridiculously Good)
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
2 cups cooked chicken, finely diced
1/3 cup mayo
1 medium avocado, peeled, halved and pitted
1 stalk celery, finely diced
2 tbsp minced red onion
2 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In food processor place the mayo, half of avocado, lemon juice, salt and black pepper to taste and process until smooth.
- Cut the remaining avocado into small cubes.
- In a bowl place the chicken, avocado, celery, red onion and cilantro.
- Add the mayo mixture and mix to combine.
- Serve with toasted keto bread or tortillas.
Nutrition
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Since this has avocado, do you need to eat it right away? Will it last for at least a couple days?
It will definitely last a few days in the fridge. However, as I am sure you know, the avocado in the recipe will start to brown, but the lemon should help counteract that. The taste shouldn’t be effected regardless though 🙂
To keep the avocado from oxidizing, put it in a container, level it out, and cover it with Saran Wrap. The key to this is that you place the Saran wrap right down on the salad.