Background: Whenever we have roasted or fried chicken leftovers one of our “go to” leftover dishes is the chicken salad sandwich. Normally we use a left-over breast for chicken salad, but recently there were only two wings left over, that had been deep fried with a beautiful crust. It seemed obvious that they could be transformed into a chicken salad that had heat from hot sauce, and cool from blue cheese, and of course celery as a star, all together on a garlic roll!

Ingredients:

2 leftover fried chicken wings chopped finely (include some crust also);
2 Italian rolls split
2 large celery stalks split and finely chopped
½ medium red pepper sliced and finely chopped
1/3 medium onion finely chopped
1 medium jalapeno cored and chopped finely
3-4 leaves Romaine lettuce cored and cut in large pieces
2 cloves garlic peeled and minced
15-20 parsley and/or cilantro leaves
2 tbsp. homemade mayonnaise
1 tbsp chunky blue cheese dressing
1 tbsp crumbled gorgonzola cheese
2 tbsp Franks hot sauce
1 tbsp barbeque sauce
5-6 sage leaves
2 tbsp olive oil

Steps:

  1. Drizzle the olive oil around on a griddle or large pan, sprinkle in the garlic, then lay the rolls in to brown- use a weight and turn 180 degrees at least once. Once they are browned turn over and allow the outside to heat up. Remove to a plate.
  2. In a mixing bowl add the celery, red pepper, onion, jalapeno, chicken and crust pieces, mayonnaise, blue cheese dressing, gorgonzola, hot sauce, barbeque sauce, sage and mix to combine. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
  3. Lay the lettuce pieces on the rolls, spoon in the chicken salad, sprinkle on the parsley/cilantro, then cut in half and serve.