Until tonight, I always thought of chicken salad as a spring/summer thing. A thing filled with cool, crisp veggies that begs to be paired with sunshine and lemonade. A thing that you replace with chili during the cooler months.

But tonight, even though it’s been a tad on the cool side here in Austin, I wasn’t quite ready to trade in chicken salad for chili. In fact, I was fully prepared to make the summeriest of salads. It was then that I stared into my box of bites and came up with a combo that was way more fall appropriate than anything I would have come up with on my own.

I chopped up two chicken breasts (that I had boiled the night before) and a handful of pistachios and dried cherries. I mixed them together with a tablespoon or two of Vegenaise. And then I added a little bit of fall magic in the form of ground nutmeg (about 1/2 teaspoon).

To top it off, I placed a few scoops of the chicken salad in a roasted and cooled acorn squash half and sealed the fall flavor deal. The nutmeg tied the flavors of the pistachios, cherries, and squash together in a way that made so much sense. And best of all, this salad was hearty without being heavy, which left me feeling the good kind of full.