Hormel Canned White and Dark Chunk Chicken, 5 Ounce (Pack of 12)

perfect for chicken salad

The best tasting chicken in a can. I keep a lot on hand during the winter for quick dinners.

The only thing I would change would be to make it all dark meat.

I bought my 1st case almost 2 years ago. I can get canned chicken in stores but no one here carries it w/ dark meat which has more flavor & is richer. I've since bought 2 more cases, cos I love it. I add it to chicken salad sandwiches, crackers, soups, snacks, etc. It's perfect for when I'm not feeling well & don't have energy to cook cos I can make simple chicken noodles soup with waiting hours for it to cook. The only way they can make this more ideal if they offered an all dark meat version, wow!!

Always keep stocked up for traveling..

Pleasantly surprised with excellent flavor. SUPERIOR TO MOST other canned chicken in that class. A little more liquid than needed,, but then, flavor, that's the best part!

We use this chicken in simple one-dish meals. It's flavorful without off flavors. There is a lot of water in the can; we use it in the dishes we make. One favorite is chicken soup. For each person, use one can of this chicken, one half cup of canned chicken broth, one potato, one carrot, a few dried minced onions, some garlic powder, dried thyme, and black pepper. Add other veggies if you want them. Combine, bring to a boil, lower the heat and cook on low heat one hour.

In my quest to appease the End of the World gods, I bought a case of Chef Boyardee Ravioli and a case of this...Hormel White and Dark Chicken. It seemed like a good idea at the time, especially because I just finished reading a book about a family who, with just an armory full of weapons, the combined fighting skills of the Marines and the Ninjas, and enough stockpiled food (and a farm) to last them 100 years, managed to survive some really bad events. And okay, the bourbon and soda I drank might have influenced me a little too. Anyway, I ordered a case of each. Trust me, there is no event so bad that it will not be made worse by eating either. The ravioli was just plain bad, but anyone with a mind free of bourbon should be able to figure that out. The chicken, however, took me by surprise. First of all, when you open the can, it's about half water (chicken juice?). When you pour off this rather viscous and somewhat unpleasant liquid, you are left with odd shards, strings and lumps of what must have been the Wally Cox of chickendom. The label shows these big nuggets of tasty looking meat. Don't kid yourself. It tastes like salty nothing, by the way. No real chicken taste. I don't give up easily (and I love canned tuna in water, so you know I'm not fussy), so I got out some mayo, some green onions, celery, seasonings (I went for a lemony middle-eastern blend that usually makes anything taste good). I mixed it all up, spread it on some toasted sourdough and...nada. It still didn't taste good. My second attempt involved pouring a can into a box of Chicken Flavored Rice-a-Roni (okay, I ordered a case of that too...it might have been two glasses of bourbon). The Rice-A-Roni, by the way, is pretty good. I'd eat it even if the martians were not landing. But the chicken took away from the overall dish, it did not contribute. So, here's what I have figured out. Food in cans is, generally, pretty bad. Canned soups are popular because they taste pretty good, some of them. Ditto for canned tuna and canned sardines. The rest of the stuff, not so much. And Rice-a-Roni is just as delicious today as back in the day when your mom made it. It deserves a better name though. And if The World As We Know It does come to an end, let's face it, most of us are roadkill. It might be wise to invest our entire survival budget on a couple of cans of expensive but really good Italian sardines, truffles, some top quality crab meat and real Russian caviar. We won't be around long enough to enjoy much more than that. Three stars because, if you are hungry, it's okay and it won't hurt you. But Hormel White & Dark Chicken is just barely edging into the Fair zone. It is nowhere near Good.