Who Knew?

To me any you can put any thing you want in a salad. I have put radishes in potato salad along with the usual ingredients. When i fix a salad I put into it what ever I happen to have on hand. But i hadn't thought about putting cauliflower into a chicken salad. I will try that and or maybe some broccoli next time I fix it. That will be one way to get somer of those 2 veggies into my grand son.

I make substitutions quite often, but usually it's the meat I'm replacing. I wouldn't have though of using cauliflower the way you did, but it sounds pretty good. I've make "tuna salad" with chickpeas instead of tuna. I'm not sure if that would be considered adventurous, but it turned out pretty well.

I thought you were going to say cucumber. I put shredded carrots in ham salad. My kids always liked that. I am adventurous. We try to find new things to try at my house, just hubby and me. I will remember, though about the cauliflower, because that sounds really good. Jicama would also be a good add in. I have also had salads with nuts in it.

I have made "mashed potatoes" from cauliflower before and it is so good. I cooked the cauliflower until it was mushy and smashed it up and added milk and butter just like for masher taters and YOU WON"T BELIEVE ME UNTIL YOU TRY THEM. They are great and can't tell a lot of difference between it and creamed potatoes. Try it! Let me know how you liked it. God bless.

I do that sort of thing all the time - and cauliflower is an awesome salad ingredient!

I'm a user of Shake and Bake. One time I was getting ready to do up some chicken. I only had the Shake and Bake for pork handy, used it, everything turned out well. I've worked in food service for many years and you'd be surprised at how the chefs throw things in vegetable soups with meat or no meat to to use up small pieces of anything so they don't get wasted. They do the same with salads.

I like to make kringlas. A kind of bready/pastry thing. It calls for sour milk. WHich if you ask the guy at the grocery store, do you sell sour milk, you get a very odd look. During the holidays I used egg nog instead of sour milk and it turned out just fine.

I have done it lots of times. I like making chicken soup, but instead of celery and carrots I will use red and green peppers and I will also add oregano as well. My mind is not at its best now. I am rather upset, but I can tell you about the cereal cookies I made, using coconut instead of walnuts in brownies, and other things. If I were not down in the dumps, I would feel a little better and remember some more, but I cannot.

Since it's going to start being real hot...tonight it's only in the high 60s..tomorrow it's going to soar to the mid 90s..ekkk...So thankfully I have the makings for some great salads..tuna, homemade potato, macaroni, etc. Well one time I was in the mood for a nice salad dinner...I always make my own macaroni salad as I just don't like the taste of the prepared deli kind. But then..oh, no..I had no macaroni! I only had the curly rotini type of pasta...so figured..what the heck..I'll make the "macaroni" salad with that instead...and you know what? I love it so much better! Years and years ago, my favorite birthday dinner to fix for myself was a delicious braised lamb in a tomato-beef stock...just before you served it you added sour cream..I was the only lamb eater in the family..but figured heck it's my birthday I could have what I wanted..But then lamb prices sky highed...just couldn't get it anymore...so one birthday decided to substitute with regular beef cubes...and it was every bit as good!

Hi there ldyjarhead Yes, I have done this before and with chicken salad. I like grapes in my chicken salad for that crunch! I didn't have any so I used some tangerines before and I found it to be very delicious. I went through a spell awhile back that I made it several times, and I'm due to make some more, it makes my mouth water for some just thinking about it!

Well there was the time (when I was a kid) that I wanted to make brownies and I substituted cinnamon for chocolate. You don't even want to know how it turned out. I do remember some concoction I put together when I was newly married. I didn't like it and my husband's comment was "don't make that again." No idea what it was after all these years... But generally no I'm not terribly adventurous with substituting ingredients any more. I should try more often...

I'm not surprised that your chicken salad was good. I like to use cream cheese in my chicken salad, though, instead of mayonnaise. It is SO good. I substitute things all the time when I don't have something on hand. I can't really think of any examples right now, but I almost never follow a recipe 100 percent (unless I made the recipe). One time I did cook some potatoes, though, and I couldn't cook them with the roast like I usually do. I was really tired and just wanted to get dinner over with. What I ended up doing was putting some diced potatoes in a baking dish, putting a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil over them, adding a few splashes of worchestershire sauce, a couple of tablespoons of honey, some salt and pepper, some minced onion, and some parsley. I baked it for about 40 minutes or until the potatoes were tender. At the same time, I got out a foil square, cut the cop off of a clove of garlic, poured a little olive oil over the top of the garlic, sprinkled some salt and pepper over the garlic, and then folded it up into a little package and put it in the oven. When the potatoes were done, I took the garlic out too and squeezed the roasted garlic out of the clove into the potatoes. I mixed it up and my yummy roasted garlic and honey potatoes were born! I couldn't believe how well it turned out.

i love chicken salad & cauliflower so i'm sure it was good. i'm always being creative w/my cooking. pecans are good in chicken salad to & i always put a little curry powder in mine. thanks for yur service to our country. greetings from tennessee.

You are a very creative woman and I admire you for that. So much could be learned from your post and I thank you for that! Well I will try to be like you and I am pretty sure I also could do. Happy posting!

i am also an adventurous person when it comes to cooking as i love cooking... i always try to experiment with all the ingredients that i have and come out with something nice... so far, it works very well and my hubby loves them... take care and have a nice day...

Thats the great thing about most veggies. if they hace some crunch they can be substituted for celery as often as not.cauliflower would be good, carrots would also be good, and jicama would be great. now tomatoes have' no crunch so that would not work.a little raw onion would also be good.

Sure have! Usually it works out...but sometimes better than others...lol Something else that is good, and good for you, to add crunch to chicken salad is sunflower seeds (unsalted). That is something I remember adding not too long ago to chicken salad and it was pretty good!