Thursday, September 1, 2011

A Tasty Salad...

Long time no blog...and it's been an especially long time since I posted a recipe so here ya go!  I made this great salad the other night.  Now...it wasn't the easiest thing ever to put together but if you have access to the ingredients and a little time for prep you have a great meal.

Chinese Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing

For the Dressing:
  • 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
  • 1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used low sodium)
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • salt and pepper

Combine all items in some kind of bowl and whisk together-or do what I did--I doubled the recipe, put it all in a quart size mason jar and just shook it up, a lot ;)  I figured you can't go wrong with extra asian type tasty salad dressing.


For the Salad:
  •   1/2 head Napa Cabbage-shredded (Note this is not a regular cabbage-they can be hard to find, A Napa Cabbage looks like this-after being cut in half)  If you haven't had it, this is more "lettuce-y" than "cabbage-y", I liked it a lot.
 
  • 1 head Romaine lettuce-shredded-recipe called for 1/2 head but you really need a full head to balance the cabbage
  • 1 red pepper-julienned
  • 2 carrots-julienned or shredded or cut with veggie peeler
  • 1/4 lb. snow peas (raw and de-stringed)-julienned
  • 1/4 cup cilantro leaves-coarsely chopped (I used less, I think it can be strong)
  • 1/4 cup green onion (thinly sliced)-I used a little more
  • Rotisserie Chicken meat
  • 1/2 chopped unsalted peanuts
Just chop, slice, dice everything and add to large bowl or onto individual plates.  Top with the chicken, dressing and peanuts.  I would recommend that you keep the veggies separate from everything else til you serve.  We had lots leftover so I would say this recipe serves 4 adults easily (and I still have some of the lettuce/veggie mix and dressing left for meatless salads this week.)

Here is mine before adding chicken and dressing and such...
And here it is with the chicken, peanuts and dressing.  We had it for dinner one night, lunch the next day and like I said I still have some of the veggie mix leftover (lunch today!)
Thanks to Salud Cooking School for the recipe-from their Main Dish Salads Class!