Nicholas Sparks' "16-Splenda Chicken Salad" Is Actually Delicious — With One Important Tweak
by Ross Yoder · BuzzFeedIt's been a while since one of the titans of the literary world shocked everyone with one of their questionable recipes; the last entry was over two years ago, when Stephen King bravely shared his favorite microwave salmon recipe (which I tried, and unfortunately loved).
Dinner: Get a nice salmon filet at the supermarket, not too big.
Put some olive oil and lemon juice on it.
Wrap it in damp paper towels.
Nuke it in the microwave for 3 minutes or so.
Eat it.
Maybe add a salad.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 20, 2022
Twitter: @StephenKing
I take my "weird recipes from beloved authors" beat very seriously.
So you can probably imagine the burst of chaotic joy I felt when my coworker passed along the latest addition to the Novelists Enjoying Weird Foods genre. This time, we have Nicholas Sparks — author of The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and many others — to thank.
Here's what happened: While doing press for his new book, Counting Miracles, Sparks sat down with the New York Times for a profile on his "palatial" North Carolina riverfront home. In the now-infamous article, the reporter happens to include Sparks' process for assembling a chicken salad, which he made that morning ahead of the visit.
Listing off each and every ingredient he added, it sounded great! That is, however, until they casually dropped in the last ingredient that quickly sent the internet into a tizzy: "16 packets of Splenda."
Once X user @kirkpate broke the news to the Twitterverse, it was basically game over.
i need absolutely everyone to know that nicholas sparks is putting 16 packets of splenda in his chicken salad pic.twitter.com/6S4r6oCMpg
— internet baby (@kirkpate) September 25, 2024
People were not well.
Not well at all!
Others pointed out that including "obscene amounts of sugar" in Southern dishes is by no means unheard of, but chicken salad felt different.
After the initial attention, Sparks responded to the "hubbub" with a TikTok on his official account, presumably while at a book signing event, as evidenced by...everything happening around him. Sparknotes version, no pun intended: 1) he eats the chicken salad out of a stemless wine glass — iconic, I fear — and 2) none of his taste testers seem particularly thrilled with how it tastes.
But in the video, he does address the question at the forefront of everyone's minds: Why Splenda? "Duke's mayonnaise, which is in the recipe, doesn't have any sugar," Sparks says. "If you're using Hellman's, you're getting the sweetness already. I use Duke's, so I add a little sweetness."
16 packets of Splenda is objectively more than "a little sweetness," as Sparks' preferred amount of the artificial sweetener is the equivalent of 2/3 of a cup of white granulated sugar. Since his written recipe calls for 8 Splenda packets per rotisserie chicken, that's 1/3 of a cup of sugar.
Disgusted, perplexed, and altogether too curious, I did what any other normal person would do after deep-diving into such a heinous food crime: I decided to recreate it in my own kitchen, following Sparks' recipe (posted in the caption of his TikTok) to a T.
I was certain the cashier would say, "Ah yes, you're making the Splenda chicken salad, aren't you?" when they saw my very specific basket of ingredients. They did not. (Phew.)
Here's everything I needed to make it. First, the ingredients for the chicken salad mixture:
Then, the dressing.
*Using Duke's is supposedly important since Sparks claims that Hellman's is already sweetened. More on this element very soon.
As far as making the chicken salad goes, there aren't very many steps after you prep the ingredients by removing the skin from your rotisserie chicken, chopping it up, and dicing up your veggies. You'll dump all your chicken mixture ingredients into a large bowl...
...and then mix it up until it's thoroughly combined.
Then, you'll whisk together the ingredients for your dressing — but before we go ANY further, I have to make a confession: It's really freaking hard to find Duke's mayo here in New York City, so ultimately, I ended up making a batch of a copycat recipe I found online. I know, I know. It's not fair, "I didn't follow the recipe," etc. But hear me out: If this recipe is as "cursed" as everyone says it is, I figured it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to give it a little boost, so to speak. My homemade Duke's mayo was A+, so I have no regrets.
BUT WAIT, there's more! After whipping together my own mayo, I thought to myself, couldn't I also put Sparks' claim that Hellman's mayo is "sweetened" to the test since he admits that it's the entire reason he even adds Splenda to his recipe in the first place? Yes, I could. So that's exactly what I did. I whisked together two half batches of dressing, the first using my homemade Duke's mayo plus four of the eight packets of Splenda advised...
...and then I made a second with regular ol' Hellman's mayonnaise and no Splenda since Sparks claims it'll still be sweet from the Hellman's (which, TBH, I already sort of doubted considering that the nutrition label lists 0 grams of carbs).
After dividing the pre-dressing chicken salad mixture in half, I mixed together the Splenda version.
Then, I whipped together the Hellman's version with no added sweetener.
Lo and behold, they looked the same — and not very aesthetically pleasing, I might add, but I couldn't tell you the last time I saw an appetizing chicken salad in the first place.
I bravely took a bite of each.
First, I tasted Spark's Splenda chicken salad, as written. I basically felt like Keke Palmer on that one episode of Hot Ones, if you replace "a little" with "a TON of."
It's not good. To be clear, it's not inedible, unpleasant as it may be. If I got this at a cafe, especially if it were part of a sandwich to cut some of that cloying chemical sweetness, I'd eat it. I mean, I'd probably give a bite to whoever I'm eating with and say, "Isn't this way too sweet?" but I would consume it nonetheless, even if the Splenda literally made my tongue tingle.
It's certainly not winning a "local contest," though, as Sparks suggests in his video.
The unsweetened Hellman's version, however, rocked. Sparks is correct that the various ingredients in his chicken salad are really solid additions that add tons of flavor and oomph; the chopped, pickled jalapeños add a subtle smokiness without making things spicy, apple cider vinegar lends plenty of tang to contrast the creamy mayo, and though I am NEVER one to add raw onion to my chicken salad, the sweet onion makes for a zingy finish that brings the whole thing together. You cannot taste ANY of those flavors behind the saccharine slap that is Splenda.
And, as suspected, it definitely did not taste sweet. At all. Equating 8 packets of Splenda + 1 cup of Duke's mayo with 1 cup of Hellman's is so chaotic.
But as I sat down at my computer to start writing this post, I thought a bold thought to myself: What if Sparks is on the right track? After all, I do appreciate a little bit of sweetness in my chicken salad; Ina Garten's curried chicken salad is my go-to, which is sweetened with Major Grey's chutney. So what if I could just cut the sweetness and see if it made things better?
I also wasn't feeling great about tossing a big bowl of chicken salad into the trash, so I figured I should do something to salvage it.
So, I combined the modified version with the original Sparks recipe, for a Frankensteined combo that ultimately packed half the sweet Splenda punch with 4 packets as opposed to 8 — the equivalent of about 2.5 tablespoons of sugar compared to 1/3 cup.
This might be a controversial statement, but I liked it. A lot. I would've enjoyed it more with the regular 2-ish tablespoons of sugar as opposed to the Splenda, or even just 1 tablespoon, but I still thought it was nicely balanced. It had that succulent sweet-and-salty flavor profile going for it that makes basically everything taste better, but it wasn't so powerfully sweet that it covered up all the other ingredients.
I ate it for lunch that day on a slice of toasted sourdough bread, and my husband and I successfully finished the leftovers over the next few days.
If you do make the modified version of this recipe yourself, keep a couple of things in mind:
• Start with 1 tablespoon of real sugar, then add an additional tablespoon if you think it could be sweeter. If you must use Splenda for any reason, maybe use two packets to start. Sparks is right that the sweetness in this chicken salad makes it unique and surprisingly balanced, but you don't need anything close to 8 packets of Splenda in this bad boy. I promise.
• You might not need all the dressing that Sparks' recipe calls for. Maybe my rotisserie chicken was on the smaller side, but I found it all to be a bit soupy for my taste, so add in your dressing little by little until you reach the consistency you prefer.