It's the Slaw

One of my favorite dishes in the whole wide world is Oriental Chicken Salad. You know, the one made with cabbage slaw and ramen noodles. I could eat it every day.

Unfortunately, the copious amounts of oil and salt-saturated dressing do NOT love me back. It is so easy to fall into the "it's a salad...it must be healthy" trap. Determined to enjoy this salad, I decided to tweak it. I'll probably be tweaking it forever, but I think I have stumbled upon a pretty good formula. Enjoy!

Sarah's A Little Less Junk in the Trunk Healthier Oriental Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 bags of prepackaged cabbage slaw mix
• 4 medium chicken breasts (grilled and cubed) or 1 whole rotisserie chicken (remove meat from bone and shred/cube)
• 1 bunch of green onions, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 slivered almonds

Dressing:

• 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
• 1/4 cup oil (grapeseed, avocado, canola, etc.)
• 5 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
• 4 tbsp sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Place chicken, slaw, green onions, sunflower seeds, and almonds in a large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together oils, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper until well combined and smooth.
3. Immediately pour dressing over slaw mix and stir until well combined.

 

 

 

 
How easy was that? A couple suggestions...I don't really measure the almonds and sunflower seeds. I like a lot of crunch in my salad, so sometimes I dump and sometimes I measure. Whatever floats your boat. Also, if you decide that you just have to have the ramen noodles, crumble them over the top of individual servings. Otherwise they will get soggy and your leftovers will not have that crunch you crave.

If you try it, let me know what you think! If you tweak it, tell me what you did and how it turned out!