Chinese Chicken Salad
I had planned on saving this recipe for the cookbook I’m currently writing but we had so many people ask about it that I just had to go ahead and share it with you now. This is super easy and a take on a popular salad that you’ve probably had before. What I like about it is that it keeps in the fridge really well so I can make a batch on the weekend and eat it for lunch for three or four days and it just gets better every day the flavors are allowed to marinate and blend.
So as I’m headed off to Ecuador, here is one more recipe post until I get back. Be sure and stay up to date with my travels by clicking here or following me on the Southern Plate Family Facebook Page. (note, this post was written in Feb of 2012)
Lets make some salad real quick because I gotta pack and hunt down my passport…
You’ll need: Vegetable oil, Rice Vinegar, Cole Slaw Mix (or shred your own cabbage, see recipe for how much), Matchstick Carrots, Cooked Chicken breasts, Chicken flavored Ramen, Salt, Pepper, green onions, and 1 Cup Sliced Almonds (not pictured, they were camera shy).
*I know the Rice Vinegar isn’t one of those ingredients that most folks have on hand and I started to substitute it but it costs less than $2 at my grocery store and is easy to find in the Asian Foods section.
To start with, lets take two packages of Chicken Flavored Ramen Noodles, set the seasoning packets aside (You’ll use those in our dressing) and crumble them up coarsely. Place those on a rimmed baking sheet along with about a cup of slivered almonds.
Stir them up a bit.
Now place that in a 350 degree oven for about ten minutes or so, until lightly browned.
Stir it up again about five minutes into the toasting.
Take your oil, Rice Vinegar, Sugar, Seasoning Packets from the packages of Ramen Noodles, Salt, and Pepper and put them all in a big old mason jar.
Put the lid on that jar and shake for all you’re worth.
Set this aside.
You could also use a blender for this but a mason jar is usually handy around my house.
Get a REALLY BIG BOWL and place your cabbage, carrots, and chopped chicken in it.
You should also chop up your green onions and put them in it but I forgot those so I’m gonna add them at the end just before I take the photo.
If you don’t have a REALLY Big bowl, use a dishpan. I would have used my dishpan but it is temporarily lost in the abyss that is my home.
Here is our dressing. Now just pour that over our salad mixture.
I know you may be thinking “This is cabbage, this isn’t a salad” but really, by the time we add this dressing and let it marinate a bit, it will feel much more like lettuce, but it won’t get all soft and nasty like lettuce would.
Give that a really good stir to get everything coated well. This is gonna be a HUGE bowl.
THEN – You can make it fit in a 9×13 pan or your biggest Pyrex mixing bowl (it will shrink down a bit after a few hours) and then cover it and place it in the fridge.
It really needs to sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight, to allow the flavors to blend and develop.
Here are our Ramen and Almonds, all nicely toasted 🙂
Don’t put this on the salad until you are ready to serve it. I store it in a plastic bag and put it on the individual servings.
And voila! Our beautiful Chinese Chicken Salad – that I scarf down for lunch several days a week 🙂
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One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.
~Anonymous
Used shredded Napa cabbage and Iceberg mixed, no ramen noodles, almonds, slivered carrots, green onions and a rotisserie chicken from the market shredded. Made a dressing of rice vinaigrette, 1/2 tsp. sesame oil, sugar and grated ginger. I don’t use the ramen packets as they are loaded with salt.
So glad you were able to customize it to your tastes Claudine!!!
Waaaaay too sweet! Maybe I didn’t read the recipe correctly but 3/4 cup of sugar???
I LOVE ALL sweet things & prefer sweet to savory anyway but this is a bit cloying. I plan to try again with less sugar. Unless you like candy in your salad I’d reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup and taste. You can always add more sugar but once you follow the recipe you had better like candy-salad!
I’m sure it’s an awesome dish w/less sugar.
Does anyone have any suggestions for
salvaging my salad?
For ten cups of cabbage, close to three cups of chicken, 3 cups ramen, 2 cups carrots, 1 cup almonds, and about a cup of green onions, the proportion of 3/4 cup of sugar (combined with vinegar as well) has never made my salad overly sweet. Nearly twenty cups of veggies and such, maybe you ended up with less?
I would add more veggies for a salvage option. 🙂
Can you half this? (This is way too much for hubby and me……..)
You sure can!!
This reminds me of an Asian salad I make but I add Mandarin oranges and I am bummed cause my daughter just found out that she is allergic to almonds so the noodles will b enough crunch
Substitute toasted, chopped pecans instead of the almonds.
I have a variation if this recipe:
No meat used,
chopped broccoli instead of carrots,
pecans instead of almonds and BEEF flavored ramen noodles.
The bowl always comes home empty, wherever I take it!
I’m going to make this, but I will divide it in half. I think it will be fine in a smaller quantity.
how do you cook the chicken for this
Hello. Brown it in a pan with some olive oil. If the chicken breasts are thick, just slice them in half starting at the longest end, making 2 halves. Medium heat for about 5 mins. on each side. For added flavor, drizzle some Teriaki juice over them. Then slice them up for the salad.
You can just boil the chicken breasts.
I had my hubby grill up a few extra the last time he was BBQ-ing. Tasted great.
Christy, I researched salad once, and it was actually usually a picnic thing, head lettuce wedges, wedged tomatoes, green onions, sliced peeled cucumbers and radishes, all placed on the serving dish and you ate them without dressing. My mother learned to cook from her mother who was from Missouri, and this was generally how salad was served in our house all my life, coleslaw wasn’t called salad, and vinagrette was the only dressing ever used on a sliced or French salad.
Just made this for church dinner tomorrow. Yummy!!!