This creamy, dairy free chicken salad is simple to make and loaded with fresh grapes, crisp almonds and flavorful chives.

Chicken salad is a favorite of mine. I’ve played around with so many different renditions of it – classic chicken salad, Sriracha chicken salad, curry chicken salad. I even shared a mayo-free version a while back. And, I love each and everyone equally, in different ways.

Just like this one. While it’s very similar to the my deli-style cranberry chicken salad, it has a flavor profile of its own, and I love that swapping out different ingredients makes a completely new salad. This version came about last year when I had a get together with some of my friends and all of our kids. I think it was back in August, but last week, I made it again for a picnic at the zoo.

I’m going to tell you a little secret: most traditional chicken salads are dairy free. But, since the “swap it out for Greek yogurt” trend went crazy, I would say about half of the recipes I find on Pinterest have dairy in them. Obviously, I’m on board with the eating healthy when I can trend, so I devised a small method to help lighten things up a bit.

I use canola oil mayonnaise, it’s about half the calories of regular mayonnaise, and it doesn’t seem to have as much added sugar as the light mayonnaise that’s out there. Then I add a bit of water to the mix stretch the mayo a little further.