Hot Chicken (or Turkey) Salad

Some of you may be having turkey for dinner on Christmas, and some of you may have more leftover turkey than you know what to do with on Monday.  After Thanksgiving, we had a lot of leftover turkey, so I decided to try something a little different.  There's a hot chicken salad that we grew up eating and it was one of our favorites (though our mom rarely ever made it).  It calls for a lot of chicken, which makes it a somewhat expensive meal, but I wondered if I'd be able to make it with leftover turkey in order to greatly reduce the price.  So I used my family as guinea pigs and, thankfully for them, it was excellent!  If you find a great sale on whole chickens, you could cook them in the slow cooker, then use the meat to make this for a delicious meal!  It does contain Provolone cheese, croissants, and a lot of meat so it's not the most inexpensive meal, but it feeds a lot of people and is oh-so-yummy!  It can be made cheaper by buying items on sale or clearance (meat, cream of chicken, Provolone, and potato chips).

Hot Chicken (or Turkey) Salad
8 cups chicken or turkey, cooked and cubed
2 cups thinly-sliced celery
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp salt
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 can cream of chicken soup
12 oz. provolone cheese, grated
1 cup crushed potato chips
Parmesan Cheese
Croissants, sliced in half lengthwise (to make sandwiches)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix first 7 ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Put mixture into a 9 x 13 casserole dish, spreading evenly.  Cover with provolone cheese.  A note on the cheese - I found Sargento sliced provolone on sale and had a coupon for it, making it rather inexpensive for Provolone.  The slices can easily be substituted for grated cheese - just lay the slices in a layer to cover the chicken mixture.  Next, add a layer of crushed potato chips, and finish the casserole with a sprinkling of Parmesan.  You don't have to buy fancy Parmesan cheese for this.  The cheap stuff works just fine!

Bake, uncovered, for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is bubbly and browned.  Serve on the croissants (I usually get my croissants at Sam's Club, as they're usually cheaper than regular grocery stores).

Mmmm...the crunchy top is the best part!

Yum, yum, yum!