Can I Use Mango From A Can For The Chicken Mango And Chilli Salad

Our answer

Nigella's Chicken, Mango And Chilli Salad (from NIGELLA SUMMER) is a lighter reworking of the British Coronation Chicken salad and is perfect for hot weather dining. It is made with cooked chicken and cubed mango. Mangoes can be difficult to buy ripe, but if you buy them a few days in advance and leave them in a sealed paper bag at room temperature, they usually ripen in 2-3 days.

Unfortunately we do not think that mango slices from a can would be particularly good for this recipe for a couple of reasons. Firstly, some mango is canned in a heavy syrup, which would make the mango too sweet and cloying for the salad. Even if you use mango canned in juice, the texture tends to be quite soft and mushy and we think that it may be slightly unpleasant in the salad. Canned mango is good for blending into fruit coulis and smoothies or using for desserts such as ice cream. You can buy fresh ready-cut mango in many supermarkets now and we suspect that may be a better option, as usually it is cut from ripe fruits and you can also see though the packaging whether the mango is ripe or not by the colour (a ripe mango will be a deeper orange colour).