This easy, mayo free chicken salad recipe has flavor, texture, and packs the protein! It’s a great make-ahead lunch to tuck into the fridge or pack for work, and tastes equally good in a sandwich, wrap, or rolled up in a big leaf of lettuce. This is the classic creamy chicken salad, re-imagined and all grown up.

Why mess with the classic creamy chicken salad?

Some recipes are classics. Simple to make and at their purest in vintage form. One could argue that creamy chicken salad falls into this category. As might egg salad, tuna salad, pasta salad, potato salad, or…any salad made with mayo (affectionately dubbed by the culinary kings as “bound salads”). Maybe that’s true. We’re not too snooty to add a scoop of nostalgia to our paper plate at potlucks and summer picnics.

However, on occasion, a classic gets an upgrade and OH BABY.

That’s what we’ve done with our mayo free chicken salad recipe! We’ve taken the classic chicken salad recipe and added the briny bite of salty olives, a fresh bunch of punchy dill, and the bright top notes of lemon. And just because, we swapped out mayo for greek yogurt, which keeps the creamy mouthfeel while removing fat and adding protein. This is brown-bag lunching done right.

The evolution of this (delicious) mayo free chicken salad

Chicken salad was one recipe I started making when my husband and I were first married. We were in our twenty-something years, worked a lot, cooked a little, and often schlepped a lunchbox to the office. We always seemed to have some kind of chicken left over in the fridge from a weeknight meal. So, chicken salad found it’s way into our weekly meal prep on fair occasion. Perhaps inevitably, that chicken salad recipe began to morph. It took on new textures and flavors as we tossed in various ingredients as a kind of “clean the fridge” activity.

Over the course of a few years and many lunches, our chicken salad evolved into something totally new. It was no longer the classic creamy chicken salad. The new recipe wasn’t heavy, one-note, homogeneous, or bland…common complaints of traditional bound salads. Our chicken salad had become a lunch to look forward to! It was jam-packed with intriguing flavor, texture, and tons of protein.

Having graduated our twenty-something days and the mini-fridge crammed into our first cubicles, the hubs and I have grown up in the world. (A little.) Our mayo free chicken salad has grown up too.

Disclaimer: This salty, tangy version may not be for the chicken salad purist (no grapes…no mayo)….and, it has a few unusual secret ingredients (lemon zest, Greek yogurt, and olives)! But. BUT. If you like your lunches with a little intrigue, give this recipe a try!