Avocado Chicken Salad
This avocado chicken salad is irresistible! Perfect for a light, healthy dinner, it’s also delicious for a quick lunch or great for party food. Bonus: it comes together FAST (15 minutes or less)!
Oh my goodness, this simple and delicious avocado chicken salad is the best stuff ever. The perfect light dinner (and/or super quick lunch), it’s also pretty darn amazing to pull out for party food.
Avocado Chicken Salad Couldn’t Be Simpler
Five salad ingredients, one bowl:
- diced avocados
- juicy bits of corn
- finely chopped red onion (can use green onion or chives!)
- flavorful chopped chicken
- chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
Then, a quick fresh and lemony (or limey, if you use limes) dressing is whisked together and poured over the top.
Toss it all together and you have a somewhat messy but totally irresistible combination.
The avocados lend the most delightful creaminess to the crisp corn and tender chicken.
I don’t often love raw onions in my food, but the little morsels of red onion in this salad are super, super tasty in this avocado chicken salad. You can easily sub in chives or green onions for the red onion.
How to serve avocado chicken salad
- Serve on a croissant or bun of choice
- Serve alongside tortilla chips or baguette slices for scooping/dipping
- Serve on its own with a side of fresh fruit
Bonus Tip: this salad is exceptionally tasty with cooked bacon crumbled and dusted across the top (or stirred in!).
A Few Additional Notes:
Chicken: the recipe calls for cooked, chopped chicken. So many options! The flavor of the salad is going to be greatly enhanced if you use a marinated, grilled chicken, but it’s also pretty darn delicious with any of the following:
- rotisserie chicken
- canned, drained chicken (if you prefer it)
- grilled chicken, like this amazing lemon garlic grilled chicken (especially awesome if it’s leftovers; minimal work!)
- quickly cooked stovetop shredded chicken
Corn: frozen, thawed corn works great, as does canned corn that is drained and patted dry. Fresh, sweet corn is exceptional in this avocado chicken salad. No need to cook first! Just slice off the cob and toss in the salad.
Avocado: because avocados brown quickly, if you are making this ahead of time or think you’ll have leftovers, add avocado to each individual serving and not the entire salad (or stir the avocados in right before serving).
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Avocado Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Dressing:
- 3 tablespoons fresh lime or lemon juice, or a combination of both
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt, I use coarse, kosher salt
- Pinch black pepper, I use coarsely ground pepper
Salad:
- 2 cups chopped cooked chicken (see note)
- 1 cup corn kernels, fresh (cooked) or frozen and thawed
- 2 medium/large ripe avocados, peeled and diced
- ¼ cup finely chopped red onion
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
Optional Add-ins:
- Halved cherry tomatoes
- Cooked, crumbled bacon
- Feta cheese
Instructions
- In a small bowl or liquid measuring cup, combine all the dressing ingredients and mix well.
- Add all the salad ingredients to a large bowl. Drizzle with the dressing and toss to combine. Add optional add-ins if desired. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if needed.
- Serve immediately. If making ahead of time, mix everything together except the avocados. Refrigerate the salad and stir in chopped avocados right before serving.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe
Recipe originally posted August 2019; updated October 2024 with new photos, recipe notes, etc.
Made this for the first time for last night’s dinner. Full of flavor and so light and refreshing but filling. Added romaine lettuce, orange bell pepper, and cucumber along with the suggested add-ins of tomatoes and bacon. Skipped the feta cheese and made extra dressing because of everything I added. Marinated and grilled the chicken as Mel suggested. But I can tell salad would be just as yummy if you toss in rotisserie chicken instead. Served watermelon on the side. Great summer meal on a very hot day! We thoroughly enjoyed it. Finished off the leftovers today for lunch. Totally hit the spot! Thanks for another fabulous recipe!
fantastic recipe! super fresh but also super yummy- made it on Thursday and again on Sunday because I liked it so much! loved the dressing. added lettuce bc I wanted some more fiber 🙂
This is the most delicious thing I have eaten all summer. It made the perfect summer meal: cold salad, fruit and chips eaten on our picnic table outside. I even had to hide the leftovers in the back of the fridge from my teenagers. Everyone wanted the last serving for lunch the next day. Thanks for another great recipe!
I love this recipe so much!! It comes together so quickly and is so light but also filling. I’m cooking for one so I mixed everything except the avocado when I was meal prepping and added 1 mini avocado each day I had it. I used canned chicken and canned corn which turned out great!
I served on pretzel buns which was AMAZING and when I ran out of those, it was delicious in tortillas too 🙂 highly recommend, I’ll definitely come back to this one!
Thanks, Ellie! Sounds delicious on pretzel buns!