Of course, Jello Salad! Where would the 50s have been without it?
Nice word salad.
A noun phrase composed of an adjective and a noun is not always an instance of that noun. A mixture of cold chopped chicken and mayonnaise, and nothing else, is still chicken salad, but chicken salad is not a salad (not even if it includes onion and celery).
Why not? An adjective and a noun is not always an instance of that noun, but it could be. So why doesn’t chicken salad qualify?
Because a “salad”, without any qualifiers, is a cold dish that consists primarily of solid vegetables, and chicken salad isn’t that.
See also:
According to Merriam-Webster:
Put it this way: If I’m at a big picnic with my mom, and I ask her if I can get her any food and she says “Just some salad, please”, she’ll probably be satisfied if I bring back caprese or cole slaw or cucumbers with sour cream, but probably not if I bring back pasta salad or tuna salad.
Do 'pudding" next!
Ya can’t have any pudding until you’ve finished your meat!
Made with green jello we called it Slime Salad.
I used to make it for the kids on Halloween and St. Pats day.
Yeah, they hated it. 
“A chicken salad” is leafy veggies with chicken as a component.
“Chicken salad” is chunks of chicken mixed with a binder.
The former falls into the category of what we mean by “salad.” The latter doesn’t.
I would say the most basic definition of “salad” is cold ingredients mixed with a dressing. By that definition, cold chicken/tuna/egg/etc mixed with mayo counts as a salad in my book.
Then there’s Solid Potato Salad, although I don’t know how the dance number relates to food.
I’d rather have Brain Salad Surgery.
A salad is whatever I say it is.
This is a lot easier in medieval cooking, where it’s only a sallet if it has fresh herbs, at least. This is still the sense in Shakespeare’s time (see: ‘salad days’, the time when you’re still green).
Still, time marches on, and I think the broader sense is fine. I love three-bean salad, for example.
In my book, any day when dinner is not a sandwich is one of my salad days.
Because there are dictionary definitions and then there is usage. If I’m talking about ordering a six foot hero “and salads” , those salads are going to be potato salad, macaroni salad and coleslaw. If I go to a diner and order a burger, and I can pay $3 extra to substitute a “salad” for fries, it’s going to be some sort of green salad , not macaroni or potato salad. And with no other context , “salad” means some sort of green salad. No one says “I’m going to have a salad at dinner” and means chicken salad.
I mean, you could argue that “pasta salad” and “macaroni salad” refer to the same food - but no one uses the phrases interchangeably.
Because Tom Colicchio hates it.