Tiffany Salad with Chicken and Grapes

Name: Tiffany Salad with Chicken, Grapes and Nuts: Layered Recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Chicken fillet 1; Grapes (white, pink) 100 g; Quail eggs 6-8; Walnuts (kernels), cashews, almonds 3 tbsp (32 g); Semi-hard cheese 50 g; Lettuce leaves 4-5; Mayonnaise 4 tbsp (55 g); Parsley optional; Dried soup vegetables, salt, black pepper, curry, bay leaf, allspice, dry white wine for preparing the fillet

☆ Rate it

1 h

Modern home cooking includes many dishes whose recipes cannot be called old, and it is extremely hard to establish who invented them. The well-known Tiffany salad is a vivid example. Most likely the recipe appeared on one of the cooking forums on the internet and got its name from the nickname of the girl who made the first post. There are other opinions too, that it has something to do with the famous jewelry brand.

By and large, this is a fairly simple appetizer made of just a few ingredients. It always includes chicken fillet, more often boiled, though sometimes fried chicken is used. Nearly all recipes have eggs and cheese, hard or semi-hard. And nuts: walnuts, almonds, cashews. The salad is dressed with mayonnaise. Of the supporting ingredients, parsley is the most common.

The highlight of this appetizer is that the ingredients are not mixed when the salad is assembled, but arranged in layers. On top go seedless grape halves, sometimes peeled. The appetizer is usually served in individual portions. To do this, a few crisp green lettuce leaves are placed on a plate, and the salad layers are built up in a pastry ring of a suitable size.

It is worth noting that, by ingredients, similar salads are found in many European cuisines. For example, the Italian Insalata di pollo e uva is simply the components mixed together, and the dressing may be olive oil. In France, Salade de poulet aux raisins is popular, a very similar salad in which the grapes are replaced with raisins. But note that the layered arrangement is extremely rare.

White seedless grapes (kishmish) are usually recommended. They have small, barely noticeable seeds and peel easily. To my taste, this is not the best choice, as such grapes are not very juicy and are rather firm. We use large, multicolored halves of juicy grapes, removing the seeds, and you can also peel the berries.

If you like, the chicken fillet can be boiled or fried. To make the appetizer tender and juicy, it is better to simmer the fillet in a small amount of liquid with dried soup vegetables and spices and, which brings out the chicken flavor wonderfully, add just a little dry white wine to the liquid. Combined with the slightly sweet grapes, the taste is amazing. If you can, let the appetizer rest in the refrigerator before serving, for at least an hour.

9 ingredientsTo the recipe

More with chicken breast

Cobb Salad with Chicken Breast and Avocado

45 min

Chicken Olivier Salad with Grilled Chicken Fillet

1 h

Sunflower Salad with Chicken, Mushrooms and Chips

1 h

Smoked Chicken Breast Salad with Cheese

15 min

Napa Cabbage Salad with Chicken and Corn

30 min

Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken fillet 1
Grapes (white, pink) 100 g
Quail eggs 6-8
Walnuts (kernels), cashews, almonds 3 tbsp
(32 g)
Semi-hard cheese 50 g
Lettuce leaves 4-5
Mayonnaise 4 tbsp
(55 g)
Parsley optional
Dried soup vegetables, salt, black pepper, curry, bay leaf, allspice, dry white wine for preparing the fillet

Step-by-step recipe

Turn on cook modeKeeps your screen from turning off while the recipe is open

Since Tiffany salad is so delicate and tasty, I advise making it with fillet from a free-range farm chicken. The taste will be noticeably different from store-bought fillet. Use juicy, fresh grapes with no signs of spoilage or wilting. Do not take a very hard cheese: Gouda, Swiss or Radamer works well. You can make the mayonnaise yourself or use a little store-bought one if it is of good quality.
Boil the quail eggs in boiling water for 3-4 mins. Then cool them under running water and peel. If you have no quail eggs, boil two chicken eggs. In a small saucepan, heat 1 l of water, add a pinch of salt, a few allspice and black peppercorns, 1-2 bay leaves, 1 tbsp of dried soup vegetables and 0.5 tsp of curry powder blend. If you like, add 0.5 cup of dry white wine (100 ml) to the water.
Chicken fillet usually boils for 15-20 mins. To make the meat soft and tender, it is better to cook it for 30-35 mins and then cool it right in the broth. After that, remove the skin, fat and bones from the chicken. While you prepare the other ingredients, put the fillet on a plate and cover it with an upturned bowl. This prevents the surface of the meat from drying out.
It is best to assemble Tiffany salad on small plates and serve it in portions. So that the cylinder of salad does not lose its shape, choose a flat-bottomed plate. Put a few green lettuce leaves on the plate. It is very convenient to build the layers by placing the ingredients one at a time in a pastry ring. It lets you spread and level the components. Then the ring lifts off easily, leaving a neat column of appetizer on the green leaves.
There are many arguments, even holy wars, about the order of the layers. It seems nobody remembers what it was at the very beginning. And it does not matter much, given the huge popularity of the salad and its variety. The eternal argument is which came first, the chicken or the egg. I choose the chicken. Cut the chicken fillet into small cubes and place it in the ring set on the lettuce leaves. Pepper the meat and, if you like, salt it.
By the way, the chicken is usually spread with a little mayonnaise. You can also simply mix the cut meat with mayonnaise and then lay it down as a layer of the salad. In total you will need 2 tbsp of mayonnaise (29 g) per portion. So divide it roughly into parts so that you have enough sauce for all the layers. Grate the cheese on a fine grater and lay it as a layer over the chicken fillet. Spread the cheese with a little mayonnaise too.
The most interesting ingredient, the one that makes the appetizer especially tasty, is the nuts. Most recipes recommend walnuts and almonds. In addition to them, we decided to add cashews. You need few nuts, 1 tbsp of each kind is enough. By the way, set aside a few nuts to decorate the finished dish. Grind the nuts to crumbs in a blender. Sprinkle the nut crumbs over the cheese and press down lightly with a spoon.
The top layer of our salad is eggs. As I said, you can hard-boil quail or chicken eggs; it makes no real difference. The eggs are usually just grated on a coarse grater. To make the egg layer a little fluffier, we chopped the eggs fairly coarsely with a knife and laid them over the nut layer spread with mayonnaise. By the way, the eggs should also be spread with a little sauce. Tiffany salad is one of the few layered salads where it is better to spread every layer with mayonnaise.
Wash the grapes and pick the berries off the stems. Pat the grapes dry with a napkin. Sometimes the outer skin of the berries is very tough, so it is better to peel it with a knife. Cut each grape in half and pick out the seeds with the tip of a knife or a toothpick. Try not to let the juice run out. Place the grape halves on top of the appetizer, cut side down. If you like, make a pattern by alternating the differently colored grapes. On top of the salad and on the plate with the green leaves you can put a few whole walnut and almond kernels. If you like, add a little parsley. Before serving, chill the appetizer in the refrigerator. One hour is enough for the Tiffany salad to soak through.
As a variant, pickled mushrooms and gherkins are often included. This is a good option and the appetizer turns out tasty. Although I prefer to make the salad with the usual ingredients, almost in the classic style. You can use more mayonnaise in the salad; that is a matter of taste. If you like, you can make a spicier version by using curry paste and more spices when boiling the chicken.