Triple Protein Salad — Recipe

I’m supposed to eat a high protein diet and average around 70 to 75 grams of protein a day.  While I do like meat, I find it hard to consume that much.  Not to mention that meat is expensive and I cannot have “steak” for every meal.  I try to find a way to eat a variety of protein sourcess of varying nature and cost.  Since I had a cup of chickpeas left, I thought I would share my “un-recipe” for  what I jokingly call “Three P Salad.”  It includes three protein sources (chicken and chicken eggs, chickpeas, and sour cream).  

These are the ingredients:

2 tablespoons Light mayo

2 tablespoons of Sour cream (I buy FF)

Chicken, cooked and coarsely chopped (I did one decent sized breast.)

Red onion, 1/2 small chopped to desired size

Celery, 1 stalk diced

2 hard boiled eggs, diced

1 dill pickle, diced

1 cup of cooked chickpeas

Salt and pepper to taste

Mash your chickpeas with a fork — I leave them kind of “chunky” for texture.

Add other ingredients.

Stir.

I added salt and pepper to taste.

It is now ready to serve.

However, I usually put it in a bowl and refrigerate it for a while to allow the flavors to meld.

Although your mileage may vary, my yield was approximately 5 cups.

Now for my notes:

1.  You can use any chicken or bits.  Or almost any leftover meat for that matter.

2.  Egg size doesn’t matter and you can add more or less.

3.  Any onion you like works.

4.  In addition to celery you can add carrots, apples, grapes, or whatever you like to bulk it out more.  Dried cranberries are pretty good, too.

5. You could easily drain and rinse a can of chickpeas for this.

6.  I don’t buy relish normally, but you could use pickle relish.

7.  Simply adjust the amount of mayo and sour cream to reflect what you need for your proportions.

8. Frugal note — cook an extra breast when you are cooking for something else for power savings.

As for serving:

On crackers

On a bed of lettuce

Wrapped in lettuce

In a sandwich

In a pita

In flour tortillas 

One final serving tip to stretch this even further.

Cook a batch of your favorite pasta.

Elbow noodles work well.  (GF works fine, too)

Stir noodles in.  Adjust mayo/etc.

Refrigerate and serve as a pasta salad.

(If I am making pasta salad, I will often use a “ranch” type seasoning blend to add some zing.)