Salpicão de Frango (Brazilian Chicken Salad)
Brazilian Chicken Salad—Salpicão de Frango—is a super popular dish in Brazil. This chicken salad recipe highlights chicken breasts with a few delicious veggies, tossed in a mayonnaise dressing and topped with potato sticks! Whether you’re looking to make this for lunch or dinner, Brazilian Chicken Salad is a filling, balanced and delicious dish.
Brazilian Kitchen Abroad is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Oi Gente!
Brazilian Chicken Salad, or how we call it in Portuguese—Salpicão de Frango—is a super popular dish in Brazil.
It’s nothing more than a few delicious veggies tossed with shredded chicken, dressed with mayo and traditionally topped with batata palha potato sticks!
If you know or had Brazilian food before you probably already know about our obsession with batata palha potato sticks, but in case you’re new to it, let me tell you… we sprinkle them on literally everything! Check out my Cachorro Quente Brazilian hot dogs, Loaded Street Hot Dogs, Brazilian Fried Rice, Brazilian Chicken Stroganoff Recipe (to name a few) to get an idea of how we use it. Trust me, you need them in your life!
This recipe is unique, too, because it calls for an element of sweetness. Similar to a California chicken salad that calls for grapes, this chicken salad adds sweetness with raisins!
In addition to the raisins, we add carrots, which are also a little sweet, along with green onions and corn to finish off this chicken salad recipe.
Salpicão de Frango is a perfect dish for potlucks and picnics and a great spring and summer make-ahead recipe. It’s so simple to make! Just throw a bunch of stuff in a bowl, mix it all up and it’s done.
Bom Apetite!
Beijinhos xoxo
Salpicão de Frango Ingredients
Brazilian Kitchen Abroad is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
This Brazilian Chicken Salad calls for a few different ingredients than you might find in a typical American chicken salad, but they add some different flavors to the mix!
You’re going to need…
- Chicken breasts (boneless and skinless)
- Brazilian Sofrito (or garlic cloves and an onion)
- Chicken stock
- Shredded carrots
- Green onions
- Yellow corn
- Raisins
- Mayonnaise
- Olive oil
- White wine vinegar
- Yellow mustard
- Batata Palha Potato Sticks or regular potato chips
- Your favorite vehicle for the chicken salad, whether that’s lettuce, bread or just eat it by its delicious self
In addition to these ingredients, you’ll need a few tools to make this homemade chicken salad:
- Instant Pot
- Measuring cup and spoons
- Wooden spoon
- Mixing bowls
How to make Salpicão
To start, season the chicken breasts with some salt and pepper, and set aside.
Then, heat up the olive oil using the ‘saute’ function of your Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker.
When the oil is hot, saute the Brazilian sofrito until fragrant, which should take about 2 minutes. Once fragrant, add the chicken, and brown each side for a minute or so.
After that, add the stock and cook on high pressure for 25 minutes on manual.
When the chicken is cooked, transfer it to a bowl and use a wooden spoon to smash the cooked chicken to shred it.
I swear to you, you’ll never want to shred chicken any other way… this is so easy and fast!
We’re halfway there! We just need to let the chicken cool to room temperature in the bowl where you shredded it. This is important because you don’t want to risk cooking or curdling the mayonnaise, or worse, see it turn into a nasty oily thing because of the residual heat from the chicken.
While the chicken cools, prep your veggies, and mix the dressing.
When the chicken is cooled off, mix in the dressing.
Stir it all up and enjoy!
Eat this chicken salad with raisins paired with some leafy greens and top it with some batata palha potato sticks or crumbled potato chips for a salty crunch. (Trust me. This is so good.)
Frequently Asked Questions about Brazilian Chicken Salad
To make chicken salad from scratch, we cook our chicken breasts in the Instant Pot. Once cooled, shred the chicken breasts and toss with the shredded carrots, green onions, yellow corn and raisins. Stir in the mayonnaise-based dressing, and enjoy immediately.
The word salpicão is borrowed from the spanish word salpicón which refers to chopped seasoned meat. Salpicão de Frango, chicken salpicão, is a Brazilian dish made with cooked shredded chicken and traditionally dressed with a mayonnaise base dressing and topped with batata palha potato sticks—also known as Brazilian chicken salad.
Store the chicken salad in a food-safe storage container in the refrigerator. It will last 3-5 days.
Other Brazilian Recipes that are great for potlucks and gathering:
- Cachorro Quente – Brazilian Hot Dogs
- Brazilian Pasta Salad with Mayo
- Chimichurri Salad
- Black Bean Salsa Recipe
BE SURE TO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK, PINTEREST, AND INSTAGRAM FOR MORE BRAZILIAN FOOD INSPO!
Salpicão de Frango – Brazilian Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs chicken breasts boneless, skinless
- 1 Tbsp Brazilian Sofrito or 3 cloves of garlic minced and 1/2 onion diced
- 1 cup of chicken stock
- 1 cup of shredded carrots
- 1/2 cup of green onions sliced
- 1 cup of yellow corn
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise add more (or less) to your taste if you'd like
- 1/4 cup olive oil plus 1 tablespoon, divided
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1 Tbsp mustard
- Potato Sticks or regular potato chips
Instructions
- Season the chicken breasts with some salt and pepper, and set aside.
- Then, heat up the olive oil using the ‘saute’ function of your instant pot.
- When the oil is hot, saute the Brazilian Sofrito until fragrant, about 2 mins.
- Add the chicken, and brown both sides – about a minute per side.
- Then add the stock, close the pan, and set the instant pot to 25 mins on manual, and let it cook.
- After 25 mins, safely release the pressure, turn off and open the pan when you are able.
- Using a wooden spoon, “smash” the cooked chicken to shred it.
- Drain the stock (you can save it for to use another time), and let the chicken cool to room temperature.
- While the chicken cools, add the veggies to a large bowl, set aside.
- Add the mayo, the olive oil, vinegar and mustard to a small bowl, and whisk to combine.
- Combine the cooled chicken with the veggies and dress with the mayo mixture.
- Serve with salad greens topped with potato sticks or chips for crunch.
Conhece o truque de fazer o frango desfiado na panela de pressão?
Sim!!! Pena que nao da pra fazer na IP!
Eu uso o setting de “meat/stew” no instant pot. O frango sai praticamente desfiado e delicioso!
Eh mesmo??!! Menina, vou tentar tbm entao!! Obrigada pela dica 🙂 beijos
Hi, love this recipe! The amount is large for me just because I live alone. You can’t freeze this, can you?
Hi Jodi – glad you love the recipe!! Unfortunately, because of the mayo, freezing is not recommended. I was just thinking, while I haven’t personally tried this yet, what you could do is… after you shred the chicken, mix in the veggies and you can portion what you will be consuming for the week, and freeze the just the chicken and the veggies without the dressing and raisins. Then, you can dress only the portion you’ll be consuming, and save the leftover dressing for when you defrost the shredded chicken. The dressing will last in the fridge just fine and you can sprinkle in raisins to taste. Hope this works!