Ten minutes, no cooking if your chicken is already shredded, and it holds five days in the fridge.

Grapes, pecans, celery and red onion through shredded chicken, bound in a dressing that is half mayonnaise and half Greek yogurt with honey, cider vinegar and poppy seeds through it.

The dressing is split for a reason

A quarter cup of mayonnaise and a quarter cup of plain Greek yogurt rather than half a cup of either.

All mayonnaise gives you a rich, heavy chicken salad that sits solidly. All yogurt gives you something lean and sharp that tastes slightly thin and can go watery as it sits.

Half and half lands between them. The mayonnaise carries fat and body and stops the yogurt separating. The yogurt brings tang and cuts the richness, which matters in a salad that also has honey and grapes in it.

For a dairy-free version, use all mayonnaise. That is the direction that works; going all yogurt is not.

Poppy seeds are not decoration

Half a teaspoon, and they contribute texture more than flavour.

this …

Poppy seeds are faintly nutty and mostly they provide a small crunch distributed through every forkful. In a salad where everything else is either soft or in large distinct pieces, that fine texture fills a gap.

They also make it look like a deli salad rather than something thrown together, which matters if you are serving it to anyone.

Halve the grapes, do not leave them whole

Half a cup of red grapes, cut in half.

Whole grapes roll away from the dressing and stay sealed inside their skin, so they arrive as a separate sweet burst rather than part of the salad. Halved, the cut surface takes on dressing and the sweetness distributes.

Red rather than green. Red grapes are sweeter and less acidic, and there is already cider vinegar and honey doing the sweet-sour work.

Whisk the dressing separately first

Everything for the dressing into a small bowl and whisked before it meets the chicken.

Honey is thick and does not disperse into mayonnaise if you add it to a bowl already full of chicken and vegetables. Whisked on its own it emulsifies into the mayonnaise and yogurt properly, and half a teaspoon of poppy seeds distributes evenly rather than clumping.

Toast the pecans if you have three minutes

A tablespoon chopped, and the recipe does not call for toasting them, which is a small missed opportunity.

Three minutes in a dry pan over medium heat, shaken occasionally, roughly doubles their flavour and makes them crisp rather than soft. In a salad this soft overall, that crunch is worth having.

Watch them. Pecans are high in oil and go from toasted to burnt quickly.

Chicken texture matters

Two cups shredded, and rotisserie chicken is the fastest route.

Keep the shreds reasonably chunky. Chicken pulled into fine threads disappears into the dressing and the salad loses its substance. Larger pieces stay recognisable and give each bite something to chew.

Where the name comes from

Sonoma is wine country in northern California, and the style of chicken salad named after it leans on grapes, nuts and a slightly sweet dressing rather than the plain mayonnaise version.

It became widely known through a supermarket deli counter version, which is what most people are trying to reproduce when they look this up. The proportions here land close to it.

Serving it

Straight away or chilled, and chilled is slightly better since the flavours settle.

Crackers for a snack, bread or a wrap for a sandwich, or spooned over greens as a salad. Around 276 calories and 26 grams of protein per serving, which makes it a genuinely useful lunch rather than a side.

An airtight container in the fridge, three to five days. It does not freeze; mayonnaise-based dressings split on thawing.

Swaps that work

Chopped apples, raisins or dried cranberries all substitute for the grapes and each takes it in a slightly different direction. Apple keeps the crunch and drops the sweetness, dried fruit concentrates it.

Walnuts or almonds work in place of pecans. For a nut-free version, sunflower or pumpkin seeds give you the same crunch.

Scaling it

The recipe doubles cleanly for a crowd. The only thing to watch is the dressing quantity, since a doubled batch of chicken and vegetables needs slightly less than double the dressing to avoid going sloppy. Start at one and a half times and add more if it looks dry.