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Dill Pickle Chicken Salad will quickly become your new favorite chicken salad – EVER! Loaded with delicious dill pickle flavor with a creamy pickle juice dressing, tender chicken, and of course lots of crunchy dill pickles.
For all the dill pickle lovers out there – be sure and try my Dill Pickle Pasta Salad, Dill Pickle Cheeseball, and Pickle Chicken.
Dill Pickle Chicken Salad Recipe
Try this delicious chicken salad for a dill pickle version of a classic chicken salad recipe. It’s the perfect combination of tender chicken chunks, tangy flavor of crisp pickles, and an ultra creamy dressing with dried dill, cream cheese, and of course dill pickle juice – which steals the show in the dressing!
Make it for meal prep for easy lunches throughout the week, serve it on toast or crackers, inside lettuce cups or wraps, on sandwiches (my family loves croissants!), with vegetable slices as ‘scoops’ such as bell peppers or cucumber slices, or serve it on a salad. Lots of ways to enjoy this yummy version of chicken salad.
Ingredient List For Easy Dill Pickle Chicken Salad
delicious dill pickle chicken salad ingredients
- Chopped or Shredded Chicken
- Dill Pickles : You will use some pickles that are finely diced along with some of the pickle juice from the pickle jar.
- Sliced Green Onions
creamy dressing ingredients
- Cream Cheese
- Mayonnaise
- Dill Pickle Juice
- Dried Dill
- Garlic Powder
- Salt
- Black Pepper
How To Make It (Printable Recipe Card)
In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooked chicken, diced dill pickles, and green onions. Set aside.
In a smaller separate bowl, using an electric hand mixer or rubber spatula, add the cream cheese, mayonnaise, dill pickle juice, dried dill, garlic powder, salt and pepper and stir (or beat) until combined well.
Pour the creamy dressing over top the chicken salad ingredients inside the larger bowl and stir until evenly combined. Cover the bowl with a lid, or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours so the chicken salad can chill before serving.
How To Store Leftover Chicken Salad
Keep leftovers of dill pickle chicken salad inside an airtight container, or meal prep containers, and store in the refrigerator for up to 4-5 days. I don’t recommend freezing this chicken salad, as the mayonnaise and cream cheese will take on a weird texture & separate once frozen and then thawed.
Serving Suggestions
The best part about this chicken salad recipe is that there are so many ways to serve it! Here are some ideas to get you started. My family’s favorite way to eat this chicken salad is inside buttery croissants. I buy them from Costco and they’re the best!
- Lettuce Wraps or Lettuce Cups : Serve them inside crisp lettuce wraps for a delicious low carb option. Butter lettuce, bib lettuce, or crisp crunchy iceberg lettuce all work well.
- Easy Lunches & Meal Prep Lunches : Make the chicken salad at the beginning of the week and store it inside the fridge, for simple lunches during the week.
- Potato Chips : Use your favorite potato chips to scoop up the chicken salad with, or another delicious option is to add potato chips inside the dill pickle chicken salad sandwiches (my kids love doing this!).
- Vegetable Slices or Wedges : Serve a spoonful of the chicken salad on top of cucumber slices. You can also cut some bell peppers into large wedges and serve the chicken salad on those; kind of like a bell pepper boat.
- Sandwiches : This is the classic way to eat chicken salad; use toasted wheat bread or your favorite kind of bread, croissants, rolls, kaiser rolls, hard rolls, bagels, favorite sandwich bread, gluten-free bread, sweet hawaiian bread, etc. It’s really yummy on my buttery One Hour Rolls if you feel like making some homemade rolls.
- Crackers : Use your favorite crackers to scoop up the cream chicken salad with. Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Nut Thins, Ritz, Club Crackers, or your favorite gluten-free crackers are all really delicious options.
- Chicken Salad Wraps : Add some chicken salad inside your favorite tortilla and wrap it up like a burrito, and then cut in half for a wrap.
Variations
- Chicken : It’s important to use already cooked chicken for this recipe. I love using a rotisserie chicken breast from Costco. You can use leftover chicken, frozen cooked chicken that has been completely thawed, canned chicken (make sure it’s well drained and flaked), or put some chicken breasts into the slow cooker, along with a can of chicken broth, and cook for 6-7 hours. Chop or shred it up when it’s done and make the chicken salad with it.
- Pickles : Although this is called ‘dill pickle’ chicken salad, you can substitute with any pickle variety that you love. Butter pickles (sweet pickles) if you prefer a sweeter taste, dill pickle relish or sweet relish will also work, or try using spicy dill pickles for some heat. Any crunchy pickles will work such as refrigerated ones or jarred ones.
- Fresh Herbs : Try using fresh dill instead of dried dill. I prefer using dried seasonings because they’re cheaper and easier to always keep in my pantry. When using dried herbs vs fresh herbs, follow the 3:1 rule. For every 1 teaspoon of dried herbs you will need 3 teaspoons of fresh herbs. So this recipe calls for 3/4 teaspoon dried dill; use 2 teaspoons + 1/4 teaspoons fresh dill, or make it easy and round up and use 1 tablespoon.
- Miracle Whip : I know some people have strong preferences when it comes to mayonnaise or miracle whip. Not to worry, they are interchangeable, so use Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise if you prefer that flavor.
- Make It Healthier : For a healthy dill pickle chicken salad use plain greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise. You could also use reduced-fat or fat-free cream cheese to lighten up the cream cheese ingredient.
- Onion : If you don’t like green onion, or onion in general, you can entirely omit the onion or try another one; yellow onion, sweet onion, red onion, or white onion.
Tips For Success
- Extra Pickle Juice : I always add some extra pickle juice to the creamy dressing! I love how it thins out the dressing and of course adds more pickle flavor!
- Make Extra Dressing : As the chicken salad sits in the fridge, it will soak up the creamy dressing and thicken up quite a bit. There are a few things you can do to fix this. Add a splash of pickle juice to the salad and give it a good mix before eating or serving. You can double the creamy dressing recipe (or 1.5x the recipe), in order to have some extra to stir into the chicken salad to moisten things back up before serving. You can also reserve some of the creamy dressing and stir it into the salad as you are eating leftovers.
Dill Pickle Chicken Salad
Ingredients
dill pickle chicken salad
- 4 cups shredded or chopped cooked chicken (I use a rotisserie chicken)
- 1 cup diced dill pickles
- 1/3 cup sliced green onions
creamy dill pickle dressing
- 1 bar (8 oz) cream cheese very softened
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon dill pickle juice from the pickle jar, or more to taste
- ¾ teaspoon dried dill
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt (I use kosher salt or sea salt)
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooked chicken, diced dill pickles, and green onions. Set aside.4 cups shredded or chopped cooked chicken, 1 cup diced dill pickles, 1/3 cup sliced green onions
- In a smaller separate bowl, using an electric hand mixer or rubber spatula, add the cream cheese, mayonnaise, dill pickle juice, dried dill, garlic powder, salt and pepper and stir (or beat) until combined well. *To ensure the cream cheese is really smooth with no lumps, add it to the bowl first and beat until it's smooth. Then add the remaining ingredients into it and mix again.1 bar (8 oz) cream cheese, 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon dill pickle juice, ¾ teaspoon dried dill, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Pour the creamy dressing over top the chicken salad ingredients inside the larger bowl and stir until evenly combined.
- Cover the bowl with a lid, or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours so the chicken salad can chill before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?
I’d love to see it! You can share it with me on @togetherasfamilyblog and follow on Pinterest @together-as-family-blog-recipes or Facebook @togetherasfamilyblog for more!
I can relate to your pickle obsession! Can’t wait to make this at home tonight, but I don’t have any green onions. Do you think the flavor of the recipe will be heavily altered if I use red or white onions? Thanks for sharing this recipe!
It should be just fine using a white, yellow, or even sweet onion. Me personally, I think a red onion would be strong or maybe I say that cause I am not huge fan of red onion. But yes, any onion will work 🙂 Enjoy!
I just made this and it is delicious. One of the best chicken salads i have ever had and definitely the best I have made! Highly recommended. I do love will pickles though!
I just made this fabulous Dill Pickle Chicken Salad! This will most definitely be a recipe I will make for my family and church potlucks!
I cooked 2 lbs of chicken breasts in 1&1/2 cups of Better Than Bouillon, chicken flavor in my crockpot for 6 hrs on low, and then shredded the chicken in the crockpot and drained the bouillon off the chicken. It turned out full of flavor and moist!
Thank you for this scrumptious low carb recipe!
May God bless you with a wonderful day!
I made this for Memorial Day Weekend festivities. It was a huge hit. I will be making this again very soon. Thanks, Jessica!
OMGoodness! I just made this Dill Pickle Chicken Salad for my office birthday bash that is tomorrow and I tasted it and immediately loved it! It’s currently “hanging out in the fridge”.. I can’t wait to share it!
Yummy!!!
Thanks for sharing! ❤️
Awesome! So good to hear this. I hope everyone loved it.
I’m on the keto diet and this is perfect for me. I will not serve it on rolls, will just eat it plain. Do you have any idea how many servings total this would be? I need to figure out the nutrients. Thanks very much.
How long will this still be good in the refrigerator?
2-3 days is what seems to work for this chicken salad…. if it lasts that long 🙂 Enjoy!
Had lots of leftover pork from a pork roast I had cooked so substituted pork for chicken and it was delicious.
I made this chicken salad and I could not get enough of it. I did add celery which added some crunch. Also, I used chicken that I cooked in my crock pot, so it was super tender. This is a recipe that is delicious and I will make again and again. Thank you!
Yum, celery sounds like a great addition. Thank you so much for your comment.
Absolutely off the charts! Delicious! Will definitely be making this often. This will be going into my “Best of the Best folder!
That made my day! I love this chicken salad so it makes me so happy when others love it just as much. Thanks so much for commenting and leaving your review. I appreciate it.
Loved it! I’m a huge fan of pickles and chicken salad, so this really hit the spot! **The recipe is correct: you MUST love pickles**
I made this for a day of boating with my kids and grandkids. We just put it on crackers. It was a big hit! You should have seen my 7 year old grandson piling it up on a cracker and stuffing it in his mouth all at once. He couldn’t get enough! LOL I’m making another bigger batch now for our annual ~200 foot water slide party tomorrow! Thank you!
Thank you for sharing such a delicious recipe. I used the Claussen garlic pickles, so only used half the garlic powder, and for the onion, used a shallot instead of green onions. Yummy and will most definitely be making this again!!
big hit with everyone and so easy can use canned chicken
We love this recipe! My family loves dill pickles… so this was an instant hit. I eyeball the ingredients and use a couple heaping spoonfuls of whipped cream cheese. For myself I make lettuce wraps (delicious), but the rest of my family loves it on potato bread. It’s our new go to chicken salad recipe in my household. Thanks for sharing.
This is delicious! I added more pickle juice and more pickles because that’s how I roll.
Love it! This is the ultimate pickle lovers recipe!
Just made this tonight and I absolutely love it! This is my new go-to lunch recipe. Thanks for sharing!
So glad you liked it! Happy it’s a new go-to for you.
Sooo good! Tysm! I did add 1/4 tsp onion powder, dash of celery salt and 1/2 cup shredded cheese. Can’t wait for this to chill and eat for dinner tonight!!!
Very good on everything from bread to tortillas to crackers. I love pickles so this is right up my alley!