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Bowtie Pasta Salad With Chicken, Grapes and Peas

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Poaching chicken is one of our favorite tricks for producing a stash of moist meat that becomes a building block for a speedy dinner tonight, plus another dinner later on.

If you can boil water, you can poach chicken. The tricky part is to have a little faith in the method, as it does sound too easy to be true.

So here goes: Take a bunch of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and put them in a soup pot. Add enough cold water to cover the chicken. Put a lid on the pot and bring it to a rolling boil over high heat. This will take five minutes or so.
Alicia Ross/United Media
Alicia Ross/United Media
This pasta salad uses poached chicken cooked in advance.
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Now for the faith factor: As soon as the water boils vigorously, take the pot off the heat. Let it stand, covered, until the chicken is cooked through. This will take about 15 minutes.

The natural tendency is to doubt whether the chicken will get done. However, the water is plenty hot for the job, plus taking the pot off the heat is the secret to ending up with tender, moist meat. This works so long as you use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which aren't so moist and tender if you boil the daylights out of them.

When we poach chicken, we usually do a lot of it because it's easy to freeze and defrost for meals later on. So poach a double batch of chicken (about 11/2 pounds), and use half for today's Bowtie Pasta With Chicken, Grapes and Peas. Freeze the rest, and in a couple of weeks, we'll publish another great recipe for using your stash.

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Ingredients

  • 1 (12-ounce) box bowtie-shaped pasta
  • 1 cup light mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon country Dijon mustard (see Note)
  • ½ teaspoon celery salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 2 cups cooked chicken cubes (about 6 ounces)
  • ½ cup thinly sliced celery
  • 1 cup frozen green peas, rinsed under cool water and drained
  • 1 cup red grapes, sliced in half

Details

Preparation

Step 1

Cook the pasta according to package directions.

While pasta cooks, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, mustard, celery salt and black pepper. Add the chicken, celery, peas and grapes. When the pasta is done, drain and rinse under cool water. Shake the colander to remove as much water as possible. Add to the bowl, and mix until all the ingredients are well coated with sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning according to preference.

Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve, up to two days. (After refrigerating, you may need to add a tablespoon or two more mayonnaise, as pasta tends to soak up sauce.) Makes 6 servings.

Note: Country Dijon mustard is coarse-ground Dijon-style mustard. Grainy brown mustard or regular Dijon also can be used.

PER SERVING: Calories 408 (34% fat) Fat 15 g (3 g sat) Cholesterol 36 mg Sodium 467 mg Fiber 3 g Carbohydrates 51 g Protein 17 g

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