I got this recipe from my best childhood friend’s mom. I was thinking about how good it tasted one day, and I decided to reach out to her and ask her to send me the recipe. She sent it to me, and it turns out, it is incredibly easy to make these fruited chicken salad wraps, and you only need a handful of ingredients.

I changed up just a couple of things to make it Weight Watchers friendly, for instance, swapping out regular mayonnaise for light mayonnaise. It probably did alter the taste a little, but it still tastes great.

Let’s talk Smart Points for mayonnaise and tortillas really quick, and then I will tell you the story behind this recipe.

Mayonnaise.

I have already mentioned this before in the Baked Cod with Creamy Parmesan Mayo Spread recipe, but I will share it really quick here too, in case you did not see it in that recipe. I like Hellmann’s light mayo, so that is what I used, but you can use any light mayo.

Because not all mayonnaise is the same number of Weight Watchers Smart Points per serving, I wanted to share this little picture (again) that shows that some mayonnaise can be 28 WW FreeStyle Smart Points per 1/2 cup while others are actually 0 Smart Points per 1/2 cup. Here are a few examples:

**Since making this picture, it was brought to my attention that Kraft LITE mayo (not mentioned above) is 9 WW SP for 1/2 cup. If you use Kraft LITE mayo instead of Hellmann’s, this recipe is still 6 WW FreeStyle SP, but I thought it was worth mentioning, since they are both “light mayonnaise.” In this case, Kraft wins in the “which is lower in Smart Points contest.” ? Thanks, Michelle, for letting me in on this one.**

Tortillas.

I used medium flour tortillas that were 3 Weight Watchers Smart Points each because my grocery store did not have the kind that are less. According to the Weight Watchers app, there are flour tortillas that are just 2 WW FreeStyle SP each. Mission Carb Balance small fajita flour tortillas are 2 WW SP each, so if you use those, this recipe would be just 4 WW FreeStyle SP per wrap. For this reason, I am using those in the list of ingredients for this recipe.

For a list of flour tortillas, wraps, and flatbreads that are 1-2 WW SP each you can check out our list of Weight Watchers friendly tortillas here.

You could also use a large lettuce leaf to make a lettuce wrap. If you eat 1/2 cup of the chicken salad mixture on a lettuce leaf it will only be 1 WW FreeStyle SP per lettuce wrap.

The Background Story on this Recipe.

I went through a really strange time in college where I got extremely sick, and it lasted a couple of months. I was unable to eat without feeling nauseous and unable to keep food down. Not only was I not able to eat, I couldn’t even stand the smell of food… which was, and still is, baffling to anyone who knows me well. I lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, and I went from healthy with lots of energy to very unhealthy and fatigued.

This is the Burke Administration building at ONU. It’s a beautiful building, with lots of stairs!
(photo credit: Olivet.edu)

The stairs and doors became my least favorite parts of the day.

As my strength was depleting from not getting the nutrients I needed, even climbing up the two flights of stairs to my classes became challenging. The doors to my dorm started to feel really heavy, too, which was something I had paid no attention to prior to getting sick. The stairs and the doors were a not-so-gentle reminder of how truly weak I had become.

As I continued to get weaker and weaker, my body started doing strange things. My hair began to fall out in embarrassing clumps, and I just wanted to sleep all of the time. I went to the school nurse who told me it was probably the flu. But the flu never went away, so I went to doctors who did tests on me and ruled everything out that they knew to look for. With each test, I was hopeful they would find something, only to be disappointed when the results came back showing nothing unusual.

One of my close friends at the time had a mom who was a nurse. She began calling her mom and asking what we should do. She went to the store and bought me Popsicles and crackers, and she prayed for me. Sometimes I could keep down a few crackers at a time, and I was thankful for her caring like she did.

My miraculous turn-around.

To this day, I have no idea how I kept up my grades that semester, and we never did figure out what it was that made me so sick. The turn-around happened on my Christmas break when I went home to my worried mother who prayed over me as I lay on the couch, 30-40 pounds lighter than the last time she had seen me.

(picture of me with my mother taken recently.
Precious, precious woman of faith! You can read about my mother’s story here.)

I can’t explain why, so I won’t even try, but the next day, I was able to eat a little bit without throwing up, and then a little more, and a little more. By the end of Christmas break, I was back to eating again and slowly regaining my strength. It truly felt like a miracle to me because, to be honest, I thought I was going to die. I thought I would never get better, and I prayed to God during that time saying, “God, if this is how you want me to go, I am okay with that.”

This picture taken not long after I started being able to eat again. As far as I can recall, I believe I was in a size 10 pants at that time. Mindy, in the red shirt, and Jen (the one with her back to the camera) were two of the friends who prayed for me during that time and brought me popsicles and crackers.

So what does all this have to do with chicken salad wraps?

When I got back to school, my roommate and long time friend, brought back fruited chicken salad and flour tortillas that her mom had sent with her. She let me have some with her. It tasted amazing, and I could not get enough (which was probably really annoying to her now that I think back on it. “HEY, woman! Stop eating all my food!”). I really appreciated being able to enjoy food again. I am sure that my friend had no idea at the time that I would one day (over fifteen years later) remember that night as an important night in my life and even blog about it! Many times, we don’t understand until years later when a significant memory is being formed. This would be one of those times. It was the first time I was able to eat in my dorm since I had gotten sick, and that was a huge deal! I slept comfortably that night with a full stomach and a grateful heart.

This is me and my best childhood friend and college roommate, Jenny, who shared her chicken salad wraps over 15 years ago.

Okay, so who is Jan?

With all of these pictures, you didn’t think I would share Jan’s recipe without a picture of Jan, did you? 🙂

This is Jan with her husband. She is beautiful, right?

Thank you, Jan, for sharing your recipe with me and for allowing me to share it on here.

The chicken salad recipe that I enjoyed that night.

If you have read this far, you totally deserve this recipe now. 🙂 If you skimmed down and jumped straight to the recipe without reading my long story, you deserve the recipe too, because you clicked on here to get it, so here you go…  The magical chicken salad wraps that tasted so delicious all those years ago that I still have not forgotten about.

Here is what you need:

2 cups cut-up cooked chicken
3/4 cup chopped celery (about 1-2 celery stalks)
1-1/4 cups grapes, cut in half
1/3 cup light mayo
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
6 Mission Carb Balance small fajita flour tortillas

Here is what you do:

Chop chicken and celery. Slice grapes in half.  Mix chicken, celery, and grapes in a large bowl.

I used my Pampered Chef Close & Cut and knife set to cut the grapes in half super fast. You can cut all of the grapes at one time! If you cut cherry tomatoes and grapes in half for salads and the like, then you may want to invest in one of these. They’re great.

In a small bowl, mix the mayo, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Mix mayo mixture and chicken mixture together.

Serve 1/2 cup of the mixture over a flour tortilla or a lettuce wrap.

YUM!

Makes 6 wraps.
One wrap is one flour tortilla with 1/2 cup of the chicken salad mixture.
3 Green, 2 Blue, and 2 Purple points per wrap.

Go here for a list of MyWW friendly tortillas, wraps, and flatbreads.