Chinese Chicken Salad With Chipotle Dressing

Photo: Adelina

Ingredients

Pea-mond Dressing

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon smooth peanut butter

1 tablespoon smooth almond butter

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

2 teaspoons adobo chipotle pepper juice

1 teaspoon adobo chipotle pepper puree

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1/2 cup canola oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Salad

1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded

1/2 head romaine lettuce, shredded

2 carrots, shredded

1/4 pound snow peas, julienned

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

1/4 cup thinly sliced green onion

2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken

1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

Chili oil, optional

lime halves, for garnish

Preparation

Dressing:

Whisk together the vinegar, peanut & almond butters, ginger, chipotle pepper puree, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and canola oil in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Salad:

Combine cabbage, lettuce, carrots, snow peas, cilantro, and green onion in a large bowl. Add the dressing and toss to combine.

Transfer to a serving platter and top with the shredded chicken, chopped peanuts, and mint. Drizzle with chili oil, if desired. Garnish with lime halves.

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About

In celebration of summer, I am in the mood for salads more than usual. I wanted to make a Chinese Chicken Salad and Bobby Flay’s version with Red Chile Peanut Dressing sounded like a great idea. I really was attracted to the combination of the napa cabbage and the lettuce leaves in the recipe. Also, if you you’re a fan of Chinese Chicken Salads, then you know that the dressing is the key. If the dressing is not flavorful, then the entire salad will be bland and not so great tasting. My only change to the recipe was to modify the dressing a little. Even though I like eating peanuts, I did not want to have a strong peanut butter flavored dressing for my salad. I used half almond butter and half peanut butter and decreased the amount of heat in consideration of my kids. Well, this dressing was a winner for me – It turned out super tasty and just the way I like it. The best part of any dressing is if you double the recipe you can make another batch of this salad few weeks from now, or use it for chicken/beef satays, or even stir fry’s. Please note to help minimize chopping efforts, I used my food processor to shred most of the vegetables. To save even more time, you can get your vegetables already pre-chopped, julienned, or shredded… it does not matter much, since the end result will be a great tasting salad.