Best Chicken Salad

This category makes us hearken to our own salad days when Mom made the best damn chicken salad this side of the Ukraine. That is why we set the bar so high for this category and why we sampled way too much chicken salad. But in our quest for the best, we have come to one unalterable conclusion: It ain't just chicken and mayo no more. There's a whole bunch of stuff going on. The chicken is chunky as well as smooth, and it is mixed with apples, apricots, grapes, nuts, mushrooms, honey, eggs, tarragon, curry--more spices than you can pull off a rack. And although Two Sisters Catering Company gave Whole Foods a serious run for its money (yes, we also sampled Central Market), the simplicity and overall good taste of Whole Foods' "classic chicken salad" just hit too close to home for us to pass up.