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This Tropical Chicken Pasta Salad is a fresh and light potluck dish or lunch for two. It’s got tons of chicken, pasta and tropical fruit.
I’m always on the hunt for new lunch ideas. Since I work from home, it’s easy to fall into a peanut butter and jelly or cheese and crackers rut so I try to have lots of options always on hand. This includes having shredded chicken readily available. I’ll often cook up several chicken breasts to use throughout the week in my lunches.
I also like to get creative with my lunches. I recently made a Lemon Chicken Pasta Salad that was amazing and this Tropical Chicken Pasta Salad was another. Greek Yogurt is my favorite thing to use in salads as well as toasted almonds. They were definitely a win for this salad as well!
It’s got all of my favorite things – Pineapple and oranges, Greek yogurt, green onions, celery and almonds. I can see myself making this week after week!
Tropical Chicken Pasta Salad
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 cups shredded chicken breast or rotisserie
- 2 cups cooked small pasta like bowtie or rotini
- 2 stalks celery diced
- 2 green onions chopped
- 1/4 cup toasted almonds
- 8 ounce can mandarin oranges drained and juice reserved
- 8 ounce can pineapple chunks or tidbits drained and juice reserved
Dressing
- 6 ounces Greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons of reserved mandarin oranges juice
- 2 tablespoons of reserved pineapple juice
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Toast the almonds for 5 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Cool completely.
- Combine sour cream, mayonnaise, soy sauce, honey, salt and pepper, and 2 tablespoons of both the pineapple and mandarin juices.Set aside to thicken.
- In medium bowl, stir together chicken, pasta, celery, almonds, green onion and fruit.
- Pour dressing over the salad and stir to coat completely. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
- Chill until ready to serve. Store in a tightly sealed container for up to 3 days.
Notes
Nutrition
For more delicious salads, try these:
Creamy Chicken, Apple and Grape Salad
Very good recipe, though I felt it needed a slight kick. But i might be confusing tropical and carribean. I added some scotch bonnet hot sauce to dressing. Just enough so thebkids would complain. But the flavors work. I used smoked bbq chicken.
Thank you for the recipe.
“Just enough so the kids would complain” I love that!! Sounds like you realy made it your own. Thanks for commenting!
I didn’t have any almonds and I used white pepper instead of black pepper, but that didn’t matter because this was delicious! I’ll be making again and again!
Nice! Thanks for stopping by Kelly.
My family and friends love this salad which is very refreshing and tasty.
I lost the original printed copy from back in 2017 I believe, but knew I was missing something from original recipe since I have not made it since 2020. Came to search for the recipe and it will be put to good use and thank you for creating it.
I have shared it at potlucks for work, friends, and family gatherings. My family requested it to be made again this week.
I just shared your website with a good friend as well.
JC, You are so welcome! We absolutely love your comment and thank for sharing your love of the website.
Kristin
will make this sounds great but the fruit was omitted from the instructions
Yup! You got me at tropical and pasta!
I love the combination of tropical and pasta salad! YUM!!