Buffalo Chicken Salad
Shredded rotisserie chicken tossed in Frank's buffalo sauce, piled over crisp romaine with celery, red onion, blue cheese crumbles, and a drizzle of ranch. No cooking. Eight minutes. Bar food that qualifies as dinner.
Ingredients
Meat & Protein
- 3 cup rotisserie chicken shredded
Produce
- 2 head romaine lettuce chopped
- 3 stalks celery thinly sliced
- 0.5 red onion thinly sliced
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 avocado sliced
Dairy
- 0.5 cup blue cheese crumbles
Pantry & Canned Goods
- 0.5 cup buffalo wing sauce Frank's RedHot Buffalo or Sweet Baby Ray's Buffalo recommended
- 0.25 cup ranch dressing store-bought
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise Hellmann's or Duke's recommended
Seasonings & Spices
- 0.25 tsp black pepper
- 0.25 tsp garlic powder
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the shredded rotisserie chicken, buffalo wing sauce, mayonnaise, garlic powder, and black pepper. Toss until every piece of chicken is evenly coated. The mayonnaise does two things here: it helps the buffalo sauce cling to the chicken instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl, and it tempers the heat slightly without making it taste creamy. Taste and adjust buffalo sauce to your heat preference.
- Divide the chopped romaine across four plates or bowls. Top each with an equal portion of the buffalo chicken mixture. Arrange the sliced celery, red onion, cherry tomatoes, and avocado around the chicken.
- Scatter blue cheese crumbles generously over the top of each salad. Drizzle ranch dressing over everything. Serve immediately — this salad does not hold once dressed.
Notes
Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing Sauce is the call here — not the original hot sauce, the buffalo wing sauce specifically. The wing sauce has butter already incorporated into it which gives the coating a slightly richer, more restaurant-quality finish than the straight hot sauce. If you only have Frank's Original, add half a tablespoon of melted butter to the bowl when you toss the chicken. It makes a real difference.
Blue cheese vs ranch is the eternal buffalo chicken debate and this recipe comes down firmly on the side of blue cheese crumbles with ranch as the dressing. The blue cheese crumbles add funk and creaminess in every bite where they land. The ranch does the dressing work across the whole salad. Using blue cheese dressing instead of crumbles makes the whole thing wet and one-note. Crumbles plus ranch is the combination — not one or the other.
The mayonnaise in the chicken toss is not optional and not enough to taste on its own. It's an emulsifier that keeps the buffalo sauce from separating and sliding off the chicken into the bottom of the bowl. Two tablespoons across three cups of chicken is not enough to taste — it's enough to make the coating work properly.
Avocado is not on the classic buffalo chicken salad ingredient list but it belongs here. The fat and creaminess it adds cuts the heat and acid from the buffalo sauce in exactly the way the blue cheese dressing version does — without making the whole salad feel heavy. Don't skip it.
Leftover buffalo chicken keeps refrigerated for up to 3 days — store it separately from the greens and vegetables and assemble fresh each time. The dressed chicken actually gets better overnight as the sauce soaks in further.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!