Buffalo Ranch Chicken Salad Recipe {Paleo, Whole30 Compliant} (2024)

This Easy Buffalo Ranch Chicken Salad is not your traditional homemade chicken salad recipe! It is PACKED full of flavor and super delicious! As a bonus, it is Paleo, Whole30 Compliant, gluten free, dairy free, and just plain tasty whether you are following a special diet or not.

I kind of love chicken salad. I might have a little bit of an obsessive personality but when I get on a kick, I like to make every variety of something under the sun until I move on to the next obsession. And let me tell you, chicken salad was an obsession.

But it is creamy, full of good for me stuff, and packed full of flavor. Really… What’s not to love?!

{See ALL of my favoriteChicken Salad recipes here!}

So I went on a kick and made about 20 different kinds of chicken salad. It is pretty amazingto have something quick, easy, and healthy in the fridge to eat for lunch or snack on that is not just “ehhh” but really delicious! So every weekend I whip up a new variety and the whole family loves to gobble it up throughout the week!

We have gone through so many varieties, but none have the fun zing that this Buffalo Ranch Chicken Salad does! I mean, to clarify, you really do need to like buffalo flavored things to love this recipe, but if you do then, wow are you in for a treat! I like to put that disclaimer here because just last week I was at lunch with a client and there was a big box of Buffalo Fries and me and another girl were gobbling them up. I mean inhaling so fast I actually splashed some sauce in my hair (keeping it real here.) The other girls asked if they were good and both of us said a resounding YES! But then we asked if they loved buffalo sauce and when their answer was “Not really,” we did a little happy dance that they liked the sweet potato fries better and we got to keep the buffalo ones all to ourselves!

So Buffalo lovers UNITE! And let’s just keep this amazing chicken salad recipe all for ourselves!

As a side note, I first made this recipe when we were doing the Whole30 diet. It does meet all of the requirements for that plus Paleo, gluten free, dairy free, grain free, and it’s low carb. All that to say if you are eating on a special diet, I have got you covered, and if you aren’t then well, you will still get to love this recipe and feel good about eating it too!

{See all of my Easy Whole30 Recipes here!}

Buffalo Ranch Chicken Salad Recipe

To make this you only need a few simple ingredients.

• Chicken Breast – shredded or diced. I love to use leftover rotisserie chicken or make big batches of chicken quickly like this.
• Celery
• Carrots
• Green Onion
• Yellow Onion
• Mayonnaise-For Whole30 compliant it needs to be homemade (I used this one, it isn’t as scary as it sounds,I promise!) or you can buy a Whole30 Compliant Mayo like this one
• 1/4 cup Franks Hot Sauce – You can taste it at the end and continue to add more until it reaches your desired spiciness.
• 1 Tbsp Ranch Seasoning Mix- I use Hidden Valley if I am not on Whole30 and this amazing Homemade Dairy Free Ranch Mix when I am!

Making this is just as simple as it sounds. Most of your prep time is all in the chopping, so if you know you will be short on time you can either prep ahead by chopping the veggies and just throwing them in a baggie in the fridge to be ready for when you make the chicken salad, or some grocery stores sell many of these veggies already chopped in the produce section which makes this recipe insanely easy to make! My Costco even sells rotisserie chicken breast already pulled and packaged in their prepared food refrigerated section which I love to use. You can even use canned chicken, but it never tastes quite as good as fresh chicken.

You can also reduce the amount of veggies if you prefer. I really pack my chicken salad full of veggies. It does a few insanely awesome things.

1. First, it makes the chicken salad way less calorie dense. Veggies are by nature very low in calories and so by chopping all of the veggies really fine, you get all of the flavors of chicken, buffalo and ranch, but lose tons of the calories you would have otherwise.
2. Veggies are nutrient dense. By packing in so many veggies, you really don’t notice how many you are eating all while getting way more vitamins, minerals and fiber. I am all about taste not diets, so when I can pack it in without losing any great taste, I do it!
3. It makes it go waaaayyyy farther. Chicken and mayonnaise are both more expensive foods and celery, onions and carrots are all pretty inexpensive foods. By finely chopping and adding all the veggies, you still get the same exact taste but you pretty much double the total amount of chicken salad you are making so it goes a long way and feeds a crowd, or just you all week!

So once you have the shredded or chopped chicken and veggies finely chopped, throw them all into a large mixing bowl. Next, I like to mix the ranch mix into the mayo, then mix in the buffalo sauce. This makes it distribute evenly throughout the mix with little to no effort. So dump the mayo mixture on top of the chicken and veggies and stir it all up. If you don’t mix ahead, just make sure to give it a few extra stirs to make sure all of the flavors are all really everywhere in the mixture.

You can eat it right away, but it is even better if you can let it chill in the fridge for an hour or two so that all the flavors can really mix and meld together so you get all the deliciousness!

You can serve this in an avocado, as a lettuce wrap, on toast, inside sweet peppers, on cucumber slices, with crackers or any other way you can dream up! And if you aren’t Whole30 feel free to load it up with blue cheese crumbles on top! You won’t regret it!

If you try this recipe make sure to let me know what you think in the comments or tag me in a photo on Instagram @easyfamilyrecipes.