Asian Cabbage Salad with Chicken and Peanut Dressing {GF, DF}

Asian Cabbage Salad with chicken, herbs, veggies and peanut dressing makes for the best easy 30 minute lunch or dinner. Asian Fusion for the win! Gluten Free & Dairy Free too. 

Asian fusion is hands down my favorite cuisine, if we can even call it that. I just love combining elements from different cuisines with an underlying Asian touch. Sesame oil, tamari, lime juice, ginger, fish sauce – I just can’t live without those.

If I have to go with a traditional cuisine, one of my all time favorites is Thai, with Vietnamese coming in second place.

The use of kaffir lime, ginger, and lemongrass as well as all the curry pastes in Thai cooking just blow me away, whereas the abundance of fresh fragrant herbs such as cilantro, and mint in Vietnamese cuisine is also an explosion of fresh flavors. And then there’s the creamy dreamy Indonesian peanut sauce – the ultimate dressing that brings everything together.

And so I present to you yet another one of my Asian themed recipes – this Asian cabbage salad with chicken. Cabbage is a Russian favorite veggie but never in raw salad form. It’s mostly used in soups, cabbage rolls, or just sauteed. Not so much in fresh salads, but why not.

The crunch of Napa cabbage leaves and their light flavor makes for a great alternative to regular leafy green salads and holds up better with all the other ingredients in this Asian cabbage salad.

There is no shortage of ingredient variations in an Asian cabbage salad but this time I went with cilantro, green onions, cucumbers, shredded chicken and peanuts. A few red chilis throw on for spice too.

Also the cucumbers are best chopped into matchsticks. Doesn’t it amaze you how just cutting a vegetable different gives it a whole new place in a dish? Cucumber cut into round work well too, but not here, here they’re better in long thin matchsticks. That’s the way you can extract the flavor from them perfectly with all the other ingredients.

You could easily use shrimp instead of chicken as the protein in this dish, or replace it with tempeh for a vegan recipe. I used leftover chicken from make home made chicken broth but rotisserie chicken, or just boiled and shredded chicken breasts will work too.

Mix all the ingredients together in large bowl and whisk the dressing together. For the dressing in this Asian cabbage salad I was in the mood for peanut flavors, so opted for peanut butter, but you could just as easily use almond butter, cashew butter, or even sunflower seed butter if you have a nut allergy.

Drizzle the Asian cabbage salad with the dressing and your meal is good to go!

This makes for the perfect light yet hearty and filling lunch or dinner. No cooking required and minimal clean up afterwards. The kind of meal you’ll be dreaming about all summer – crunchy veggies with fragrant herbs and a creamy dreamy nutty dressing. 

For some of my other favorite Asian fusion recipes check out my:

• Asian Chicken Bowls with Broccoli, Carrots and Almond Butter Sauce {GF, DF}
• Thai Veggie Quinoa Bowls {Vegan, GF}
• Asian Cucumber Noodle Salad {GF, Vegan}

5 from 5 votes

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Asian Cabbage Salad with Chicken and Peanut Dressing

Prep Time

25 mins

Total Time

25 mins

 

Asian Cabbage Salad with chicken, herbs, veggies and peanut dressing makes for the best easy 30 minute lunch or dinner. Asian Fusion for the win! Gluten Free & Dairy Free too. 

Course: Dinner, Entrée Salad, Lunch, Salad

Cuisine: Asian, Asian Fusion, vietnamese

Servings: 4

Calories: 273 kcal

Author: Vicky

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup green onions diced
• 1/2 cup cilantro diced
• 2 cups rotisserie or boiled chicken diced
• 1/2 whole cabbage
• 2 whole English cucumbers cut into matchsticks
• 1/4 cup peanuts crushed

For the Dressing:

• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon tamari
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce

Instructions

1. In a large bowl combine salad ingredients - cabbage, green onions, cilantro, chicken cucumber and peanuts. 

2. In a small bowl combine dressing ingredients and mix until smooth. Add more water if needed until desired consistency is reached. 

3. Drizzle salad with dressing. 

Recipe Notes

To make this recipe vegan: use pan fried tofu or tempeh instead of chicken

For nut allergies use sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter and omit the peanuts 

Nutrition Facts

Asian Cabbage Salad with Chicken and Peanut Dressing

Amount Per Serving

Calories 273 Calories from Fat 162

% Daily Value*

Fat 18g28%

Saturated Fat 4g25%

Cholesterol 53mg18%

Sodium 403mg18%

Potassium 321mg9%

Carbohydrates 4g1%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 1g1%

Protein 22g44%

Vitamin A 320IU6%

Vitamin C 4.2mg5%

Calcium 31mg3%

Iron 1.7mg9%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.