How To Fill Your Chick-Fil-A Chicken Salad Void

Obviously, Chick-fil-A has a very chicken-centric menu, with many of its entrees, ranging from breakfast biscuits to salads to sandwiches, featuring either fried or grilled chicken cut into strips, slabs, or nuggets. However, the restaurant once offered chicken in a different form — chopped and mixed with mayo to make chicken salad. Alas, as the ever-quotable poet Robert Frost might have said were he still around when the salad left the lineup, "Nothing gold can stay." (Metaphorical gold, that is. The salad was more of a pale yellow.) 

The reason Chick-fil-A gave for discontinuing the salad was that it felt customers were looking for new things, but in light of how disappointed people were by the disappearance, why hasn't it been considered for a comeback? One Redditor, who implied that they worked at Chick-Fil-A, said that the sandwich took too long to make, considering the relatively low number of people ordering it. As of 2023, a tweet from Chick-Fil-A's social media team indicates that there are no plans to reintroduce the sandwich, so if you've been wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin', as the old song goes, that won't get the sandwich into your mouth. Instead, you'll need to find another option, but luckily, there are plenty of other chicken salads from which to choose. Some of these might involve traveling, but others could be right in your own neighborhood (or kitchen).

One thing that made Chick-fil-A's chicken salad so unique was that very few chicken chains seem to offer this dish. You won't find these sandwiches at competitors such as Popeyes, KFC, or Zaxby's. However, one place you're very likely to see them on the menu is at sandwich chains. Subway, the nation's number one sandwich shop (in terms of sales, if not quality), offers chicken salad, although their take on it is pretty minimalist since the mixture consists of nothing more than chicken and mayonnaise. Jason's Deli tilts toward the opposite end of the spectrum, with a chicken salad that contains both almonds and pineapple.

Topping the list of our chain restaurant chicken salad rankings is the sandwich from Lenny's Grill & Subs. While Lenny's menu doesn't have much to say about the salad's ingredients (apart from stating it contains "100% all-white meat chicken breast"), this sandwich earned the top spot due to rave reviews on social media. A number of TripAdvisor users have used called the sandwich "great" and "wonderful."

If you're not located in the Southeast, you may be unaware that there's a chain restaurant entirely devoted to chicken salad. While Chicken Salad Chick does have a few far-flung outposts west of the Mississippi and as far north as Chicago, most of its locations are concentrated in the lower right quadrant of the map. This makes sense since the chain got its start in Alabama and the names of a few of its salads, including Dixie Chick and Olivia's Old South, reference its Southern roots.

Chicken Salad Chick offers over a dozen different types of chicken salad. Some, like Jalapeno Holly, Buffalo Barclay, and Kickin' Kay Lynne, are spicy, while others like Fancy Nancy and Fruity Fran contain grapes and apples. Sassy Scotty is made with ranch dressing, bacon, and cheese, while Patti Thai'rific has cashews, carrots, and a sesame-ginger dressing. If you're looking for something a bit closer to your long-lost fast food favorite, though, you may need to combine the Classic Carol with the aforementioned Olivia's Old South. The former contains crunchy celery bits like Chick-fil-A's, while the latter includes sweet pickles and hard-boiled eggs.

If you're always looking for an excuse to go on a food-related road trip but feel that the whole "America's best burger" trope has been done to death, how about pursuing America's best chicken salad sandwich instead? Feel free to do your own research (since you're the one doing all the driving), but in case you're interested, we offer our curated list of the absolute best chicken salad sandwiches in the U.S. to use as a jumping-off point.

Now, some of these sandwiches are a far cry from Chick-fil-A's. NYC eatery Tompkins Square Bagels makes a chipotle-spiked chicken salad (that comes on a bagel, of course), while Jeff's Table in Los Angeles does Hainan-style chicken salad flavored with cucumbers, shallots, and chili crisp. At Virginia Beach's Leaping Lizard Cafe, the chicken salad contains curry, chutney, and yogurt, while Pom Pom's Teahouse and Sandwicheria in Orlando, Florida, makes a chicken salad that includes apples, almonds, and curry. If traditional-style chicken salad is what you're after, head for Al's Cafe in Boston, where the chicken salad consists of nothing more than meat, mayo, and seasonings. Alabama-based Ashley Mac's Kitchen sells an equally basic chicken salad that's available in local groceries, but if you're dining in, the salad may be embellished with grapes and celery.

If you're willing to travel (or fortunate enough to live in the vicinity), there is one destination you can visit where the chicken salad tastes exactly like the one Chick-fil-A used to sell. In fact, it's not a dupe. It's the very same salad, and it is still available at Hapeville Dwarf House. The Dwarf House was the original Chick-fil-A location opened in 1946 by Truett Cathy. It served as the incubator where he would hatch the original Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich and release it to the world in 1964 (and would spawn a Chicken Sandwich War some 55 years later).

Hapeville Dwarf House, which could be considered Graceland for Chick-fil-A superfans, serves as an adjunct to the official Chick-fil-A museum and backstage tour at the company's headquarters in Atlanta since it also features plenty of memorabilia and even offers tours. However, it mostly fulfills its original purpose as a restaurant, although the menu goes beyond Chick-fil-A's current offerings to include such items as omelets, burgers, and fresh-baked pies. Of course, the real reason Hapeville Dwarf House may be worth traveling hundreds of miles for is that it's not only the one location where you can try a Chick-fil-A Hot Brown sandwich but is the only place you'll find discontinued menu items including coleslaw and yes, chicken salad sandwiches.

Most supermarkets offer premade chicken salad, so you can always pick up a tub of the stuff along with a loaf of bread for a DIY sandwich that'll take about 30 seconds to make. While we haven't found any store-bought Chick-fil-A dupes, some of the salads are fairly plain — instead of stuffed with grapes and cranberries or flavored with curry.  Among these simpler salads are Kroger's old-fashioned rotisserie chicken salad, Target's Good & Gather rotisserie chicken salad, Walmart's Freshness Guaranteed rotisserie-seasoned chicken salad, and Kirkland Signature chicken salad made with rotisserie chicken. (It seems Costco — and perhaps these other stores — may be making good use of any unsold rotisserie chickens.)

If you really want that Chick-fil-A flavor but don't want to wait until you get home, pick up a few hard-boiled eggs from the deli section along with a few packets of pickle relish if available. (If not, you can always buy a jar or, in Costco's case, a five-gallon barrel.) Celery sticks can be found either at the salad bar or in the produce aisles. Grab a plastic spoon or fork for stirring and a knife for cutting up the eggs. (You may need to use your hands to break the celery into pieces.) Mix in these ingredients, and you'll have your very own Kroger-Target-Walmart-Costco secret menu chicken salad. (Grocery stores have secret menus? Well, we just spoke them into existence, so now they're a thing.)

When Chick-fil-A retired its chicken salad sandwich, it left behind a consolation prize: a recipe that would allow bereft sandwich fans to make the filling at home. However, recipe developer Kristen Carli took the chain's template and made a few tweaks to come up with her own copycat Chick-Fil-A salad. While it contains the same five ingredients: chicken, mayonnaise, hard-boiled eggs, celery, and sweet pickle relish, she tweaked the proportions by cutting down on the relish and doubling the mayonnaise to make a slightly less sweet but much creamier salad.

The salad starts with cooked chicken. Chicken breasts will give you the most Chick-fil-A-like results, but if you want to save time, you can use rotisserie chicken instead. Shred the meat with your hands or use a stand mixer, then chop the eggs and celery, and combine all of these ingredients with the relish and mayonnaise. Spread the chicken salad between two slices of bread. Carli favors English muffins to make a sandwich that's protein-packed, flavorful, and filling. Best of all, it will be right there in your hand instead of being lost in long-ago memories of bygone fast food favorites.