This Asian cabbage salad is what you want for dinner on a warm summer night, a refreshing and substantial dinner salad with cold crisp cucumbers, cabbage, spinach and mint tossed in an addictively good sesame-ginger-garlic dressing and topped with fresh-off-the-grill marinated chicken and shiitake mushrooms.
This is a great salad - fit for any occasion: lunch, dinner, or entertaining. It's loaded with healthy vegetables - cabbage, spinach, cucumbers, mint, and scallions. It's topped with slices of marinated grilled chicken and shiitake mushrooms. The Asian-inspired dressing is bursting with flavor.
Napa cabbage is the perfect salad ingredient - it has a more delicate texture and flavor than other green cabbages. Plus its wrinkled leaves hold salad dressing really well. Napa is an extremely popular cabbage in Asian cuisine, used for making stir-fries and soups and as the main ingredient in Japanese Kimchi. There's a fair bit of slicing and chopping in this recipe which can all be done while the chicken and mushrooms are marinating.
The salad dressing doubles as a marinade.
Chopped peanuts are the final touch!
Recipe
Asian Cabbage Salad with Grilled Chicken and Shiitake Mushrooms
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 5-6
Description
A refreshing summer dinner salad with cabbage, spinach, cucumbers and mint, grilled chicken, and a wonderful sesame-ginger dressing.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into halves
- 12 Shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
- Dressing
- ½ cup olive oil or other vegetable oil
- ¼ cup Asian sesame oil
- ½ cup rice vinegar (unseasoned is preferable)
- 3 tablespoons dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- Salad
- 1 Napa cabbage, trimmed, bruised outer leaves removed, sliced
- 5 ounces spinach, leaves stacked and slivered
- 1 hothouse cucumber, sliced into rounds
- 1 cup loosely-packed mint leaves, roughly chopped
- 12 scallions, ends trimmed off, thinly sliced
- Garnish
- 1 cup roasted, salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Make the dressing In a medium bowl whisk vinegar, mustard, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, and lemon juice. Slowly add oils, while whisking constantly, to emulsify. Dressing can be stored in the fridge for 4 days.
- Chicken and mushrooms Put chicken and mushrooms in a large glass baking dish. Pour ½ cup dressing over and turn to coat. Cover and allow to marinate for at least ½ hour and up to 3 hours. Heat grill to medium high. Sprinkle chicken and mushrooms with salt and pepper, to taste. Grill chicken for 5-6 minutes per side, until cooked through. Grill mushrooms for about 2 minutes per side. Slice chicken crosswise. Slice mushroom into thirds.
- Salad Put cabbage, spinach, cucumber, mint and scallions in a large bowl. Add ½ cup dressing and toss to coat. Transfer to a platter, if you like. Add sliced chicken and mushrooms on top. Drizzle some dressing over the chicken and mushrooms. Sprinkle the salad with chopped peanuts. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 45 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: Asian
Hannah A
I had been looking for a good meal-type salad and BOOM I came across this gem. I'm vegetarian so I subbed tofu for the chicken, but honestly the mushrooms were so meaty and delicious it would have been good even without the tofu.
Laurie
This is exactly what I want to eat RIGhT NOW--which is saying something, at 7:00 am! Looks fabulous!
Lindsay
This looks amazing - perfect for CSA veggies. I love summer salads with mint!