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Tested: all the Johma chicken salads you can buy

Johma kip salade

Chicken salads for bread: there are many different varieties. Large pieces of chicken, small pieces of chicken, a little spicy or with curry. The FavorFlav editorial team’s test panel worked its way through no fewer than eight different varieties to reach either a glowing or devastating verdict. Take advantage of our findings.

Foto van culinair journalist Lauretta Baarends

Tested: all the Johma chicken salads

For the test, we bought all the different varieties of Johma chicken salad for bread. And there are no fewer than eight. In our opinion, many Johma salads taste rather similar: lots of mayo, sweetness and the occasional added flavour. So we were curious to see whether tasting the salads side by side (and blind) would reveal any real differences.

And we’re also including the plant-based versions of the chicken curry and chicken samba in the test. All salads cost between €2.95 and €3.59.

Chicken samba

We start with the chicken samba, a favourite of many, as becomes clear when curious looks peek into the test kitchen. The first thing we notice is that the ratio of chicken to sauce is a little out of proportion. In other words: lots of sauce, little chicken. But when we spread it on a cracker, we still find the mayo mixture with its mild sweet-chilli flavour quite tasty, despite it being genuinely sweet. In our book, it falls into the ugly-delicious category.

Plant-based chicken samba

We’re fooled. If you don’t know you’re eating a plant-based version, you can’t taste the difference. Not surprising, since the sauce is also the majority ingredient here. Visually, this plant-based version is almost identical too. The chicken does have a different texture: more strands (‘pulled’) than pieces. We find this version less spicy than the original samba.

Spicy Twente chicken

All Johma salads come ‘Oet Twente’, so the salad with real Twente chicken must be exceptionally delicious. Or not? It looks appetising, with lots of green herbs mixed in. That turns out to be parsley, and it can certainly be tasted. The flavour? More boring than the samba, and we can barely taste the ‘juicy roasted Twente chicken’ either. A disappointment.

Chicken pesto

New: chicken pesto salad. A beautiful green pesto colour, but we don’t see much chicken in the tub. Perhaps the lowest chicken content so far. That turns out to be correct. When we check the ingredients list on the back, this salad contains the lowest percentage of chicken. It actually tastes like pesto mayo, with the occasional small piece of something that doesn’t really seem to be chicken. We don’t consider this a chicken salad. Bummer.

Chicken mango

Wow! Large pieces of chicken! We also spot a few pieces of mango here and there. That looks delicious. When tasting the salad, pretty much all our expectations come true. It’s fresh and sweet thanks to the mango, with a clear chicken flavour. That’s thanks to the generous pieces, which earn this salad quite a few extra points.

Chicken curry

Then it’s time for the classic among chicken salads: chicken curry. Recognisable from a mile away by its bright yellow colour. This one also has decent pieces of chicken. You can’t really go wrong with chicken curry; the flavour is simply delicious. No wonder it ends up near the very top. Have you ever noticed that it also contains pieces of pineapple, apple and gherkin?

Plant-based chicken curry

Thanks to the distinctive sauce, we immediately know we’re dealing with another chicken curry variety, this time the plant-based one. Remarkably, we find a large lump of stringy fake chicken at the bottom of the tub. Not particularly appetising. The fake chicken is somewhat rubbery and chewy, with little flavour. The sauce manages to save things somewhat, but the difference from the original chicken curry is certainly noticeable; the test panel finds this one rather bland.

Chicken satay

Then the last one: chicken satay. Does it come close to the flavour of a juicy chicken skewer with a generous dollop of delicious thick satay sauce? A little, but this is the diluted version. The salad is far too wet because of the large amount of mayo. We also miss a little heat. Oooh, and let’s not even talk about what it looks like; it gives us the creeps.

Conclusion

Our preconception is correct: the salads consist mostly of mayo, with one containing just slightly more chicken than another. Planning drinks and snacks this weekend? Then buy a tub of chicken mango (the most generous in terms of chicken), chicken samba if you like spicy food, or simply go for that chicken curry. You know you can’t go wrong. Spicy Twente chicken and chicken satay definitely won’t be making it into our shopping baskets.

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