The Original Coronation Chicken (2024)

Make a British royal dish in just 10 minutes! Classic Coronation Chicken is super easy to prepare and great for sandwiches, salads and jacket potatoes!

The recipe for traditional Coronation chicken salad couldn’t be easier, requiring just10 minutes to make and a few simple ingredients.

A British royal dish

The original Coronation chicken was invented by writer Constance Spry and the founder of the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school Rosemary Hume, while preparing the food for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

The original dish is basically cooked chicken meat with a simple curried mayonnaise dressing, and it's quite funny that such a simple recipe made its way into Buckingham Palace.

You might find it surprising, but the original recipe calls for curry powder, because fresh curry spices were almost impossible to find in post-war Britain.

Nowadays you can easily find this classic British saladeverywhere in UK, from supermarkets, deli shops to sandwich bars.

Unfortunately, over the years this recipe has lost a bit of its charm, with so many ingredients and variations added, it looks now a really vague reinterpretation of the royal dish.

Most versions out there include ingredients that have nothing to do with the original version, such as sultanas.

The original recipe doesn’t contain a single sultana, only dried apricots (that can be chopped or pureed), and the dressing includes a balanced mix of mayonnaise and whipped cream.

Ingredients

The recipe I'm sharing today follows very precisely the traditional recipe, and it couldn't be easier to make.

All you need is just a few simple ingredients:

• cooked chicken
• dried apricots
• mayonnaise
• crème fraîche
• olive oil
• curry powder
• white onion (or shallot)
• red wine
• bay leaf
• lemon juice
• a pinch of sugar
• salt & pepper

The only minor change I made to the original recipe it's swapping the whipped cream with light crème fraîche for a lighter result.

But you can totally follow the traditional route if you want, and use fresh unsweetened whipped cream.

And if you want to lighten things up a little bit more, swap the cream with Greek yogurt.

Instructions

The dressing/sauce comes together in as little as 7-8 minutes with few easy-to-follow steps:

• Heat the extra-virgin olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-low heat.

• Add in the onion, bay leaf and curry powder and gently cook for 2 minutes.

  See Also

  No-Bake Chocolate Tart with Pistachio PasteVeganes Naan Brot ohne Hefe (glutenfrei) - ElaveganChestnut Mushroom BourguignonLinsenbällchen in Paprika Curry Sauce - Klara`s Life

• Add in the tomato paste, red wine and water and bring to a gentle boil.

• Pour in the lemon juice and a pinch of sugar, then season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste.

• Simmer for 2 minutes, until the sauce is slightly reduced, then remove from the heat. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve and allow it to cool.

Once the sauce is ready, you can fold in the remaining ingredients.

• In a large bowl mix together the prepared sauce with the mayonnaise,chopped apricots and crème fraîche.

• Add in the chicken breast chunks, optional almond flakes, and mix gently all the ingredients together. That's it!

Serve the coronation chicken with a salad, rice or as a filling for jacket potatoes and sandwiches.

How to cook the chicken

For the cooked chicken meat, you can simply grill or steam the skinless chicken breasts (you can also use skinless and boneless thighs if you like).

I usually poach the chicken in water with a peeled carrot, onion, potato, celery stalk and a bay leave.

This way I can save up all the chicken stock and use it for other tasty recipes.

The traditional recipe instructs to poach the chicken in a big pot of water with a carrot, a bay leaf, a splash of wine, a little fresh thyme and parsley, and four peppercorns.

Use your preferred method from the two above mentioned, and poach the chicken for 40 minutes, then cool it down, chop into chunks and mix it with the prepared dressing.

Serving suggestions

There are endless ways to serve your coronation chicken salad! Here are a few of my favourite ways:

• in a sandwich
• over a bed of salad leaves
• with basmati rice
• with grilled veggies
• as a topping for a baked potato

Storage tips

You can store coronation chicken leftovers in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge for up to two days. I don't recommend storing it in the freezer.

Extra ingredients

Once you have mastered the basics, feel free to add a few extra ingredients. Some of my favourite includes:

• finely chopped celery
• toasted almond flakes
• a little bit of mango chutney
• some fresh finely chopped coriander
• few drops of Tabasco

Can I make it allergy-friendly?

Traditional coronation chicken salad is naturally gluten-free, soy-free, peanut-free and nut-free.

To make it egg-free you could use a mayonnaise without eggs.

And if you want to make it dairy-free, I recommend swapping the crème fraiche with a thick dairy-free yogurt.

More British recipes you'll love:

• Chicken Cottage Pie
• Easy Tuna Pasta Bake

Recipe

** This post was originally published in April 2015 and updated with new info and a more clear recipe**