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This Hot Chicken Salad recipe makes an easy, delicious meal! Chicken, celery, sour cream, and cheese baked with buttery cracker topping. Perfect for serving for a family meal, luncheons, and potlucks! It is always a crowd favorite.
Hot chicken salad is a family favorite recipe for sure. Creamy chicken with crunchy bits of celery and a delicious buttery cracker topping, it’s hard to believe it’s ready so quickly. But it disappears just about as fast, if not faster!
How to Make Hot Chicken Salad Recipe
Ingredients
Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full listing of ingredients, instructions, notes, and estimated nutritional information.
- Chicken – This recipe uses cooked chicken. I love to use my shredded chicken recipe or even leftover baked chicken. You can also use rotisserie chicken, homemade or store-bought.
- Celery – Diced celery adds crunch to this hot chicken salad recipe that my family loves.
- Salt – I use kosher salt.
- Pepper – Black pepper adds flavor to this recipe.
- Lemon juice – Brings out so much flavor in this recipe.
- Sour cream – Makes the chicken salad creamy and delicious. You can also substitute with partial or all Greek yogurt if you like.
- Mayonnaise – Like the sour cream, the mayonnaise adds to the creaminess of the hot chicken salad.
- Cheddar cheese – Shredded cheddar cheese is delicious in this recipe.
- Ritz crackers – Crushed buttery crackers are added to the top of this hot chicken salad and then baked for a delicious topping!
- Butter – added to the top of the Ritz cracker topping for baking.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Mix together the hot chicken salad. Add all of the ingredients except the crackers and butter to a large mixing bowl.
Pour into baking dish. Spread the hot chicken salad mixture into a baking dish.
Add topping and butter. Distribute the cracker crumbs and butter on top of the casserole.
Bake. Bake in a 350º F oven until golden brown and heated throughout about 20 minutes.
Serve.
Make Ahead and Freezing Instructions
To make ahead. Cool and wrap tightly. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat and serve.
To freeze. Prepare hot chicken salad mixture and spread it into a freezer-safe baking dish. Wrap tightly with freezer-safe wrap and store in the freezer for up to 4 months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and add the cracker crumbs and butter before baking.
Here’s my Hot Chicken Salad recipe. I hope you love it as much as we do.
Hot Chicken Salad Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 cups cooked chicken chopped
- 1 cup celery diced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 sleeve Ritz crackers
- 2 tablespoons butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350º F.
- Mix together all ingredients except butter crackers and butter. Pour into a baking dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Spread evenly.
- Crush butter crackers and spread over top of chicken salad mixture. Top with pats of butter.
- Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes until lightly browned and heated throughout.
Notes
Nutritional Information
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
Came across this recipe recently and decided to give it a try. Wow! We love it! Other hot chicken salad recipes I’ve found are more like a chicken casserole with cream-of-something soups. Yours is perfect! The only change I made was adding slivered almonds. We will definitely be making this again!
I made this tonight and it was really good. But I added a pinch of red pepper to give it a little “kick”
This was delicious! Will be making again! Thanks for posting!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this hot chicken salad. One of our favorites!
Can I omit sour cream?
I see you mention subbing in yogurt instead of mayo. Is it a one to one sub? I can’t do mayo either. So 1/4 cup sour cream and 1 cup yogurt with Mustard?
Yes, Debbie. You would use the same amount of yogurt as the recipe states for mayonnaise. So 1/4 cup sour cream and 1 cup yogurt with bit of mustard. Hope you enjoy!
My grandmother made a very similar recipe, but added a couple of boiled eggs all cut up. Also instead of sour cream she used cream of chicken soup. I love the idea of slivered almonds though and swapping the soup for sour cream. Instead of crackers, toasted bread crumbs would work. Panko bread crumbs hold their texture so that would also be pretty tasty. I like chunky celery so I used to parboil the celery a bit before adding. Going to revive this dish for my family and see if it just as good as I remember from a couple of decades ago! Thanks!
My husband and I love this recipe. I add some chopped onion and to make it low carb, I use pork panko instead of crackers. So good I am making it tonight!
I’m glad you and your husband like this recipe! Thanks.
This is exactly what my grandmother used to serve at her club meetings! I can’t eat dairy or gluten, so I exchanged the sour cream for an equal amount of dairy free yogurt, and gluten free crackers and dairy free butter on top, along with dairy free cheese. Thanks for taking me back to grandma’s house!
Brooke, I’m glad this recipe took you back to memories of your grandma’s house. Thanks for telling us how you make this dairy and gluten free.