Is it Cheaper to Make or Buy Chicken Salad?
Chicken Salad is one of my favorite lunches or even snacks. Whether you use it in a sandwich, as a dip with crackers, or just atop a bowl of green lettuce. I’ve noticed more and more grocery stores are selling their own pre-made chicken salad.
This made me wonder if cooking the chicken, chopping all the veggies, and mixing my own chicken salad is actually cheaper than just buying it already made. It would definitely be a time saver, so let’s breakdown the costs to see if it could save me money!
How much does it cost to make chicken salad at home?
For the cost breakdown, I am using a very basic chicken salad recipe. This recipe originally called for 4 cups of diced chicken, so that averages out to about 3 pounds of raw chicken breast.
| Homemade Chicken Salad Ingredients | Total Cost | Cost for the Recipe |
| 3lbs raw chicken breasts | Great Value $2.97 a lb (5.1lb pack)= $15.18 | $8.91 |
| 1/4 tsp salt | Great Value 26oz container= $0.72 | $0.01 |
| 1/4 tsp pepper | Great Value 3oz container= $3.77 | $0.10 |
| 1 cup mayonnaise | Great Value 30oz jar= $3.18 | $0.86 |
| 2 tbsp lemon juice | Great Value 32oz bottle= $2.88 | $0.09 |
| 1/2 cup chopped celery | Dole bunch of celery= $1.97 | $0.24 |
| Total Cost: $27.70 | Cost for the Recipe: $10.21 |
For this cost breakdown, I used prices at my local Walmart because they tend to be the cheapest for an everyday price. If I had shopped around, I may have found the chicken breasts on sale cheaper somewhere else.
This recipe makes approximately 4.5 cups of finished chicken salad, so that is about 36 ounces total. The total cost of all ingredients is $27.70, but the for the amount we need for the recipe it came out to $10.21.
In case you were wondering why we didn’t but a lemon for the juice, we recently discovered that in most cases buying the juice already squeezed is generally cheaper than doing it yourself.
In order to be able to price compare the homemade version to the store bought version of chicken salad, we need to be able to compare with a standard measurement like ounces. The cost of homemade chicken salad was about $0.28 per ounce.
How much is chicken salad at the grocery store?
Now let’s head to a couple different grocery stores all over the US, to see what the average cost of store-bought chicken salad per ounce typically runs.
| Store Bought Chicken Salad & Size | Store & Price | Cost per Ounce |
| Freshness Guaranteed, 32oz container | Walmart, $12.94 | $0.40 |
| Kroger, 12oz container | Kroger, $6.99 | $0.58 |
| Kirkland Signature, 38oz container | Costco, $19.13 | $0.50 |
| Meijer, 12oz container | Meijer, $6.99 | $0.58 |
| Food Evolution, 8oz container | Fresh Thyme Market, $6.49 | $0.81 |
| Member’s Mark 16oz container | Sam’s Club, $7.30 | $0.46 |
| Park Street Deli, 16oz container | Aldi, $6.39 | $0.40 |
| Wellsley Farms, 32oz container | BJ’s, $15.29 | $0.48 |
| Reser’s Fine Foods, 12oz container | Save A Lot, $5.49 | $0.46 |
| Albertsons, 16oz container | Albertsons, $11.99 | $0.75 |
| Ralph’s, 16oz container | Ralph’s, $8.49 | $0.53 |
| Sprouts, 16oz container | Sprouts, $10.99 | $0.69 |
| Average Cost per Ounce: | $0.55 |
We shopped at 12 different stores and found chicken salad as high as $0.81 an oz (Fresh Thyme Market) and as low as $0.40 an oz (Walmart and Aldi).
The average cost per ounce for store bought chicken salad came out to about $0.55. That is almost double the cost to make your own chicken salad which was $0.28.
Even if we did go with the cheapest option from Walmart or Aldi, the store bought was $0.40 and the homemade was $0.28.
Is homemade chicken salad worth it?
If we are just looking at price, it is definitely worth it to make your own chicken salad. If this is an item that you would buy regularly at the store pre-made, you could save a good deal of money by just making it yourself.
One of the drawbacks of making your own chicken salad is the time that it takes to cook the chicken and chop the celery, but you can batch these tasks with making dinner and save this time. If you are already cooking chicken for dinner, just go ahead and cook a couple extra breasts for making chicken salad.
One of the biggest reasons, it is better to make your own chicken salad, is simply that you get to control the ingredients. You can use whatever leftover chicken you have whether it be fried chicken, chicken thighs, or just use canned chicken.
Then the flavor combinations are truly endless. You can skip the traditional mayonnaise and use sour cream or ranch dressing. You can add chopped pickles, diced onion, a variety of dried or fresh fruit, and lots of other flavor additions like bacon bits, chives, and mustard.
Any way that you like chicken salad, the time of making it is totally worth it when you see the price difference!
