Chicken Salad With Fennel and Charred Dates Recipe (2024)

No problem, just pan roast first for a minute or so until a bit darker and fragrant, then grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Add at the end, you don’t want to roast the powder.

This salad was a huge hit, with the crunchy texture of the veggies and hits of chewy sweetness from the dates. We may use a bit more lemon juice and salt next time, but will definitely file this in our “keepers” file. PS: As usual with NYT time estimates, this is definitely not a 10 minute recipe.

Absolutely delicious, but I’m not sure even Edward Scissorhands could do all this slicing and shredding and get this on the table in 10 minutes.

This sounds heavenly. Going to the store now to get fennel bulbs. Everything else on hand. Mmm.

Mmm this was delicious! I’ve been a little suspicious of fennel but I think the combo of the lemon juice and dates really mellowed out the licorice flavor. I served this with an Iranian rice dish with brown lentils and dates and hazelnuts (from the cookbook “The Saffron Tails” by Yasmin Khan) and it. Was. AWESOME.

I soaked the dates so I could take off the skins - always makes a huge difference taste wise. I’m not anti skin - love love a date. This is just so special sans skin.

For all those commenting that it's more than ten minutes, all the time intensive stuff is hidden in the ingredients list (eg the fennel is already shaved, the chicken already cooked and shredded). It's maddening, but standard.

Slice fennel sticks

Fantastic! Do watch your dates - can get tough and chewy fast in the pan

This was absolutely delicious! I have made it 3 times now, and like it better without the red pepper flakes.

Delicious flavor combo! I upped all the salt/pepper/red pepper flakes toward the end. Don't be like me and doubt the instructions on blistering the dates -- I thought surely they'd need longer and gave them more time in the skillet, which they totally didn't need!

Shockingly good. Easy, healthy, different, delicious, modern?

Really delicious, made almost exactly as specified. The only variations: we doubled the recommended lemon juice, and we added crumbled bacon because we had some lying around.

This is delicious! I used coriander seeds and worried that they would break teeth; instead they provide a nice crunch and a burst of flavor. The sizzling dates are a lovely and unexpected component. Can't wait to make this for friends.

This was lovely - added zucchini and golden beets for a bit more heartiness and it tasted so nice for lunch!

Is this served warm, room temp or cold?

Delicious and easy to make using rotisserie chicken. I used the fennel seeds; has anyone made this with coriander?

Didn’t have lemon so went with lime juice. Also only had a few dates so subbed out the rest with golden raisins and added some pine nuts and cashews to the fried items. Came out nicely.

Today was a clean out the refrigerator day, so I used leftover sauteed chicken, along with its artichoke/mushroom sauce - that worked well. My only recipe changes were substituting 2 oranges (peeled, cut up) since I didn't have dates, and slicing in several stalks of celery that we were trying to resurrect in a glass of water on the counter. I served on top of warm couscous on a cold day, and it hit the spot. Next time - dates!

This is good as written. For my taste I like it even better with double the dates and crumbled bacon instead of chicken.

Slice fennel sticks

Excellent recipe though I agree that it takes far longer than it says. It is a very simple recipe, more than double the time they say by the time you go through all the steps plus we then had to shred chicken as it’s not common to have on hand. We used rotisserie chicken which was nice and moist. I made the mistake of cutting the dates smaller but they stuck together in the pan defeating the purpose. Next time I’ll cut them in half and sear them and then cut them smaller afterwards.

Delish, and this was super easy to bring together. It has also made for some great leftover chicken salad sandwiches! Will definitely be making it again