Poppy Seed Chicken & Grape Pasta Salad | Sin & Soul Blog Bare Kitchen Recipes

You guys are really lucky today! You get TWO blog posts. This weekend, I went on a bit of a cooking binge, and cooked a ton. On Saturday, I wanted a light and easy lunch so I decided to make one of my favorite cold pasta salads, Poppyseed Chicken & Grape Pasta Salad. I had saved some chicken from the Chicken Rollups earlier in the week, as I was planning to make myself a chicken salad sandwich with grapes, but this sounded so much better! My local grocery store makes a version of this and I am in love with it. This salad is also very versatile, you can add pineapple, apples, assorted peppers, and lemon if you would like. However, in the spirit of Bare Kitchen Recipe planning, I decided to keep it simple and minimal. I will however, include the amounts in the recipe and leave it as optional ingredients if you would like to customize it a bit more. If you do choose to add more ingredients, you'll also need to eyeball your mayo and add a bit more chicken.

8 ounces pasta, your choice cooked as directed

1/2 c. diced, cooked chicken

1 c. grapes, sliced in half length-wise

1/4 c. mayonnaise

2T. milk

1T. honey, warmed 10 seconds in microwave

1 T. poppy seeds

Optional Ingredients

Juice of 1 lemon in replacement of milk

zest of 1 lemon

1/4 c. pineapple

1 small apple

assorted peppers, sliced

Now, I love poppy seeds so you may want to alter the recipe a bit to your taste. You'll see in the photos that the poppy seeds are quite rampant. Just the way I like it!

In a large bowl, combine pasta, chicken, and grapes, stir to combine. In a medium bowl, combine warmed honey, milk, and mayonnaise. Whisk briskly, ensuring that the honey is well combined. I use Breitsamer Honig Golden Selection Blossom Honey and I love it!! It's one of the highest quality honeys I have ever tried. I usually try to stay local with items like this, but this is a German honey that I can't imagine any local honey will ever replace. I strongly recommend trying it, you can find it HERE.

Back to our recipe, once you've well combined the previous items add the poppy seeds and stir. If the mixture seems not to be loose enough, you want it to be more of a sauce or dressing; add milk until you reach desired consistency. You may not need the entire 2T. and in some cases, you may need more. Pour over the top of pasta mixture and stir. This can be served immediately or refrigerated overnight.

This can also be served with a wide variety of things. There was enough for us to have lunch with and in the evening I served it with steak and broccoli for dinner.

Pasta salads are probably one of my favorite things to make no matter what the season is and I am always on the look out for new varieties, so please share if you have one in particular that you enjoy. Also, if you have any special requests for a future blog post, please feel free to give me any recommendations you may have! Thanks again for tuning in, see you again soon!