This homemade chicken salad is SO EASY to make and is very kid friendly too. We love to make a quick batch and take it along on picnics and road trips!

I’m going to keep this short because we are off to the zoo this afternoon. #yourewelcome

It’s sunny days ahead, which means more posts about picnics and salads and generally lighter fare. I made this chicken salad a few times recently to take on picnics, and just to enjoy at home for quick and easy lunches.

In the past, I almost always went for tuna salads (find our easy recipe in this post) simply because it was so much easier to just to open a couple of cans of tuna. However, since I’ve been making this ridiculously easy chicken breasts in the Instant Pot, chicken salad seems a lot more doable.

If you’ve been around the blog for any stretch of time, you know that my favorite things to make are things that do not require special ingredients or special trips to the store. If I can make it using the ingredients I routinely keep on hand, then I’m for it.

The only “special” ingredient in this chicken salad is grapes, but I won’t hear any complaints from my kids if I pick them up more regularly from the store! Plus, they’re a great summer fruit because they are like candy if you freeze them and eat them straight out of the freezer.

Quick and Easy Homemade Chicken Salad

I will be taking this chicken salad with us to the zoo today in my new cooler bag from IKEA, along with a few of our other favorite picnic foods.

Before we get to the recipe I’ll point out a couple more things to note about this chicken salad:

It’s simple and kid friendly. I purposely left out anything my kids could potentially protest about. I try to avoid food skirmishes on picnics.
I use plain yogurt instead of mayo. While I do enjoy mayo on our sandwiches and for making ranch, I prefer chicken salad with yogurt– homemade in the Instant Pot, of course.
The chicken you use is negotiable. You can use this recipe to quickly cook a few chicken breasts in your Instant Pot, use leftover chicken from another meal, or use a rotisserie chicken. It’s up to you. Just know that you may need to spice it up or add more salt depending on which you choose. I based the recipe off using the ridiculously easy chicken breasts.