Between-trip refrigerator clean-out

Salsa Peanut Sauce Chicken Salad

After coming home from our Florida vacation and before heading off to Chicago, I was on a mission to make the most of the ingredients languishing on my counter, in my herb pots and in the refrigerator.

I remember a former co-worker of mine mentioning that her mom made a sauce by mixing peanut butter and salsa together. It sounded gross, she admitted, but it was really good. I think I went home that night and tried to mix the two together and it was gross. Well, in a moment of clarity, many years later, I realized that said co-worker's mom must have cooked the two ingredients down into a more homogenized sauce.

There's a dish at my favorite Thai restaurant (Thai Garden in Hoffman Estates, IL) called "Popeye's Chicken," and the sauce that is slathered over the chicken and fresh spinach leaves is somewhat similar to this. Intensely peanutty, but also spiked with tomato and sweetness, the finished sauce seems surprisingly polished considering the lowly leftovers used to create it.