Chicken and Bulgur Salad with Avocado Recipe

Chef Alfred Portale makes a spectacular avocado terrine that he serves alongside sliced chicken and a bulgur wheat salad. Here, we tossed chunks of avocado with chicken and bulgur to create a less dramatic but equally delicious salad.

Bulgur is a quick-cooking whole grain made from wheat kernels that have been parboiled, dried, and cracked. It’s widely used throughout the Mediterranean and West Asia to make dishes like tabbouleh, kibbeh, porridge, and pilaf. It’s categorized by grain size, ranging from fine to coarse. Fine bulgur is prepared by soaking it in boiling water; coarse bulgur can be made this way as well, though it will require a significantly longer soak — some opt to cook it on the stovetop for this reason.

Select fine bulgur for this recipe. If you’re not sure where your bulgur falls on the grain size spectrum, be aware that it may need to soak longer than the instructed 30 minutes to become tender.

The best avocado variety for this dish

Of the more than 500 types of avocado, Hass avocados account for 80% of the world’s avocado crops — and for good reason. Their relatively high fat content makes for especially creamy flesh with a wonderfully buttery flavor, which is why they’re great in this salad.

Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen

For this recipe, only the fennel bulb is used — but that doesn’t mean you should discard the fronds and stalks. The feathery fronds have a delicate, anise-like flavor and can be used as you would tender herbs in salads, soups, stews, and other dishes, or to make a pesto. The similarly flavored stalks can be finely chopped and used like celery in any number of dishes. Alternatively, you can pop the fronds and stalks in the freezer and add them to the pot next time you make vegetable or chicken stock.