Every Publix Chicken Salad and Mac and Cheese, Side by Side
$4.29 a pound buys hot macaroni and cheese, regular or cheddar Gouda, at Publix’s Southgate Shopping Center store in Lakeland, Florida (#1270). Publix chicken salad costs more than twice as much a pound.
It isn’t sold by the pound, though. The Lakeland store lists its chicken salads in 8-ounce packs with no price online, so we priced them on Publix’s delivery site, at $6.09 to $7.75.
Publix lists the cheddar Gouda mac at 700 calories a pound. For the regular, its own two sites disagree, at 1,300 and 840.
Chicken salad and mac and cheese price per pound
Publix listed these for the Lakeland store on November 4, 2026. An asterisk marks a price from delivery.publix.com, the Instacart storefront Publix delivers through, because publix.com shows none for those items.
| Item | Price | Per pound | Calories as listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homestyle chicken salad, 8 oz | $7.75* | $15.50* | 190 a half cup |
| Classic chicken salad, 8 oz | $6.09* | $12.18* | 240 a half cup |
| Chunky white chicken salad, 8 oz | $6.09* | $12.18* | 220 a half cup |
| Savory tarragon chicken salad, 8 oz | $6.09* | $12.18* | 330 a half cup |
| Boar’s Head Cransational chicken salad | $6.40* | $10.49* | Not listed |
| Boar’s Head Cransational bowl, serves 10 | $34.99 | Not listed | 340 a serving |
| Hot macaroni and cheese | $4.29 lb | $4.29 | 1,300 a pound |
| Hot cheddar Gouda mac | $4.29 lb | $4.29 | 700 a pound |
| Chilled cheddar Gouda mac, 16 oz | $4.69 | $4.69 | 700 a pack |
| Chilled mac and cheese, 16 oz | Not listed | Not listed | 1,290 a pack |
| Boxed mac and cheese dinner, 7.25 oz | $1.09* | $2.41* dry | 250 a serving |
Prices vary by store. The four items we could price both ways cost 10.7 to 11.4 percent more on the delivery site, in line with what Publix delivery adds to shelf prices.
That puts an 8-ounce chicken salad at about $5.50 on the Lakeland shelf, or about $11 a pound. It’s our estimate, not a Publix price.
On those delivery prices, a pound of the homestyle, classic, chunky white or tarragon costs 2.6 to 3.3 times a pound of hot mac.
What sets each chicken salad apart
The three Publix Deli salads share a base of cooked chicken breast and mayonnaise. Their labels, which count a half cup as a serving, show where they part ways.
- The classic, sold as Publix Deli Chicken Breast Salad, Classic, adds crisp celery, pickle relish, red peppers and a little sugar. It has the most carbohydrate, 5 grams, and the least protein, 10 grams, at 240 calories.
- The chunky white comes in an herbal dressing of celery, carrots, onion, parsley, dill, garlic and lemon juice, at 220 calories and 13 grams of protein.
- The savory tarragon adds only tarragon and almonds and is the richest, at 330 calories and 29 grams of fat. The almonds rule it out for anyone avoiding tree nuts.
- The Publix Homestyle Chicken Salad mixes rotisserie chicken breast with mayonnaise, onion and celery. Only its delivery listing gives numbers, 190 calories and 15 grams of protein.
On paper the homestyle is the leanest pack and the priciest. To skip its $1.66 premium on the delivery site, we’d pick the chunky white, which gives the most protein for its calories of the three $6.09 salads.
The Boar’s Head EverRoast Cransational salad, made fresh daily, mixes roasted chicken breast with celery, cranberries, golden raisins and green onion. It sells by weight, about 0.61 pound for $6.40 on the delivery site, and as a $34.99 bowl for 10.
Two more show up without prices, an Indian Style Butter Chicken Salad with apples, golden raisins, cashews and a yogurt-based dressing, and a Cranberry Pecan Chicken Salad from the outside brand Comfort Cuisine.
Chicken salad on a Pub Sub, not by the pound
Publix’s order-ahead menu sells no chicken salad by weight for the Lakeland store. The made-to-order route is the Chicken Salad Sub, $6.99 for a half or $9.99 for a whole, on a white roll with lettuce and tomato.
Publix’s chicken salad sub builder puts 4 ounces of chicken salad on a half, at 280 calories, and 8 ounces on a whole, at 570, the same weight as a pack.
So the whole buys twice the chicken salad for $3 more, the same gap as the classic subs in our list of half and whole Pub Sub prices. Counted by the chicken salad alone, a whole comes to $19.98 a pound, roll included.
The $6.99 Chicken Salad Wrap holds 4 ounces, like a half.
Skipping the bread saves nothing. With the lettuce base, the builder still shows $6.99 for a half’s 4 ounces, while an 8-ounce pack costs about $5.50 by our estimate, so for chicken salad on greens, buy the pack.
Publix doesn’t name the salad on the sub. Its 570 calories for 8 ounces sits closest to the classic’s label, about 545, against about 500 for the chunky white and 750 for the tarragon.
Tasting Table’s reviewer ranked the Chicken Salad Sub seventh of 10 Pub Subs in June, crediting the celery crunch but not the finely shredded chicken.
Hot mac and cheese or the chilled pack
The deli sells the regular and a cheddar Gouda hot by the pound, at $4.29 a pound each at the Lakeland store. You pick 1 to 10 pounds online, give an hour’s notice and pay in the store.
Publix’s macaroni and cheese order page gives the regular’s ingredients only on request. The Gouda’s page lists shell pasta, cheddar and Colby cheese spread, light cream, smoked Gouda and a hickory smoke concentrate.
Both also come chilled in 16-ounce packs, and the deli lists a Nashville Hot version too. The Gouda pack’s regular $4.69, shown during a sale that ended November 4, runs 40 cents a pound above the hot price, and publix.com prices none of the packs outside a sale.
Chowhound’s August 2025 story put the chilled Gouda at $5.19 a pound and the hot at about $3.99. That $5.19 matches the delivery site, not the store, and the hot now costs $4.29 in Lakeland.
Either hot mac also counts as a side on the 3-piece chicken tender meal.
Two calorie counts for one mac and cheese
Publix.com lists the hot regular mac at 1,300 calories a pound, and its chilled pack’s label says 1,290. The delivery site lists the same hot mac at 840 a pound and shows a pack label of 820.
The two pack labels match on saturated fat and cholesterol and come within 2 grams of fat and 20 milligrams of sodium. They split on carbohydrate, 198 grams against 93, and 198 grams would make the pound 44 percent carbohydrate.
Publix doesn’t say which is current, and it offers more nutrition details on request. The lower one sits closer to the Gouda’s 700, but if the count matters to you, ask the deli.
The Gouda’s 700 calories a pound holds on every listing. Worked out from their labels, a pound of the tarragon chicken salad comes to about 1,500 calories, the classic about 1,090 and the chunky white about 1,000.
The boxed dinner in the pasta aisle
The Publix Macaroni & Cheese Dinner sits in aisle 6 at the Lakeland store and costs $1.09 for 7.25 ounces on the delivery site, about $2.41 a pound before cooking. Its label counts about three 1-cup servings at 250 calories each, before the 4 tablespoons of butter and quarter cup of milk it calls for.
How much to order for a group
Publix says its hot mac and cheese serves 3 to 4 people a pound. At $4.29, 3 pounds ($12.87) feeds 9 to 12, 5 pounds ($21.45) feeds 15 to 20, and the 10-pound maximum ($42.90) feeds 30 to 40, about $1.07 to $1.43 a person.
Order on publix.com or in the app at least an hour ahead, or call the store if you need it sooner. Every Publix closes on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, so collect a holiday order by Wednesday.
Chicken salad costs more a serving. Each 8-ounce pack holds about two and a half half-cup servings, so 10 people need four packs, $24.36 on the delivery site or about $22 in the store by our estimate.
The Boar’s Head bowl feeds the same 10 for $34.99, $3.50 a serving, with a day’s notice. It sits among the catering menu’s salad and pasta bowls for 10, and the Entertainer Platter, whose mini croissants include chunky chicken salad, comes in sizes for 4 to 28.
