Rainbow Thai Chicken Salad

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I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately, both for work and for fun, and with the warmer weather and eating out constantly while traveling, basically all I’ve wanted to eat while home is salads!  Most restaurants don’t serve enough vegetables, in my opinion, so I always crave all the vegetables upon returning home!

This salad has been a repeat offender, in the best possible way, over the past week!  It’s full of fresh, crunchy vegetables, easy to prepare boiled chicken, and the most flavorful and delicious Thai peanut dressing.  The dressing is inspired by a Thai peanut sauce that I’ve put over swoodles (sweet potato noodles) in the past.  It’s also partly inspired by one of my favorite noodle dishes (called Rainbow Peanut Noodles) at a local Thai fusion restaurant.  P.S. if you’re in the Kansas City area, I highly recommend you check out Lulu’s Thai Noodle House!  You really can’t go wrong with much on their menu, but I especially love the Rainbow Peanut Noodles, the Drunken Noodles, Pad Se Eu, or of course Pad Thai.

Anyways, back to this SALAD 🙂

It’s super easy to prepare and really allows for various combinations of vegetables to be tossed in to your liking!  I made this a second time using a slightly different mix of vegetables than the first based on what I had on hand and what I could easily find at the store, so like I said, if any of the vegetables listed below don’t appeal to you, feel free to mix it up!  Any vegetables found in Asian dishes could be tried with this – sugar snap or snow peas, cucumber, cauliflower, celery, even canned water chestnut!

The dressing is really the star here, and putting it all in a blender to mix makes it super easy.  I used fresh ginger and garlic but this could easily be made with dried or powdered garlic and ginger as well.  You’ll just need to reduce the amounts to probably around 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. to be equivalent to the amounts of fresh used in this recipe.  Since it’s a smaller amount, I’d recommend using a personal size blender or small food processor.  I’ve used Ninja brand blenders for several years with success.  And in my opinion, you really can’t beat the price.  Either of these models would work well for this recipe – blender, personal blender, and food processor combo or for less money, 2 sizes of personal blender cups combo.  Also, the heat level from the crushed red pepper can be modified or removed all together depending on your liking.

This makes quite a large amount of salad, but since all the vegetables are pretty hearty, they can hold up well to being saved for leftovers, even with the dressing on!  Below is a picture of it being mixed up in the biggest bowl I own :).

Thai Chicken Salad Bowl

This salad can easily be made Whole30 or Paleo as well if you follow those food plans.

So, give this recipe a shot and let me know how it goes!  I’d love to hear what kind of delicious veggie combos you come up with!

Thai Chicken Salad Side Shot

Ingredients:

Servings:  6            Time:  30 minutes

Dressing:

  1.  1/4 C coconut aminos (or soy sauce)
  2.  2 T natural, no sugar added peanut butter (or almond butter for Whole30 or Paleo)
  3. 2 T Rice Wine Vinegar
  4. 2 T Olive Oil
  5. 1 t Sesame Oil
  6. 1 large clove garlic, peeled (or approximately 1/4-1/2 t powdered)
  7. 1 thumb-sized knob of ginger, peeled (or approximately 1/4-1/2 t powdered)
  8. 1 dried date, softened in 1-2 T warm water for a few minutes (or 1 t sweetener of choice)
  9. 1/8 t crushed red pepper to taste
  10.  Salt and pepper to taste (use less salt or omit if using soy sauce)
  11. Warm water as needed to thin (use the leftover water from the softened date)

Salad:

  1. 1 14-16oz bag coleslaw mix
  2. 1 14-16oz bag shredded purple cabbage
  3. 1 14-16oz bag broccoli slaw
  4. 6 green onions, thinly sliced
  5. 6 radishes, thinly sliced
  6. 1 orange, red, or yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
  7. 1/2 C slivered almonds
  8. 4 large chicken breasts, about 2-2.5 pounds, cooked and shredded
  9. Fresh cilantro and sesame seeds to top, optional

Instructions:

  1. Cook and shred chicken.  I use the method described in my Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe.
  2. While chicken cooks, throw all ingredients for the dressing into a blender and blend until smooth, adding small amounts of warm water as necessary to thin to typical dressing consistency.
  3. Chop bell pepper, radish, and green onion and mix with coleslaw, purple cabbage, and broccoli slaw in a large bowl.
  4. Dish up about 1/6 of the rainbow of vegetables mix, 1/6 of shredded chicken, and top with approximately 2 T of dressing, slivered almonds, cilantro and sesame seeds if desired.
  5. Enjoy!

Nutrition info:  383 tot cal, 14 g fat, 25 g carb, 42 g protein

Egg Roll Bowls

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I’m always on the look out for healthy, flavorful, QUICK meals.  Since I avoid dairy products, a lot of what I eat regularly is Asian inspired.  In addition to generally not containing dairy, Asian food is delicious!  Stir fries and curries are my flavor jam!  I love just about anything with garlic and ginger.

However, I’ve never been a huge fan of traditional fried egg rolls.  I know, I know…there’s just always been something a little off-putting about them to me flavor wise.  Then add in the often greasy outer fried shell, and it’s a no-go in my books.

Recently though, I stumbled upon this recipe from Peace, Love, and Low Carb that I found intriguing.  Upon looking through the ingredient list, I thought that this was an egg roll variation that I could on board with.

Garlic, ginger, soy, and sriracha form the base of the flavors so what isn’t there to like about it?  I keep many of the ingredients on hand so basically just have to grab the coleslaw and broccoli slaw mixes(and maybe fresh ground pork and ground turkey if I don’t have time to thaw out the frozen stuff) to prepare.

You can also make it both Paleo or Whole30 compliant, so along with being dairy free, many types of eaters can fit this into their eating style!  If you avoid soy or soy based products, you can use coconut aminos.  A little about coconut aminos – clearly from the name, it is made from coconut.  More specifically, coconut sap.  While I do enjoy soy sauce, I try not to consume too much soy based products because of my thyroid disorder.  Coconut aminos is a pretty good substitute and is Paleo and Whole30 compliant.  It is MUCH lower in sodium (about 75% less, which is generally a good thing) and also has a slightly sweet flavor.  It doesn’t taste like coconut, but if you use it in place of soy, be prepared to need a bit more salt in your recipe than if you use traditional soy sauce.

So, back to the recipe:  it comes together really quickly thanks to using convenient items such as bagged coleslaw mix!  And since it makes a pretty large quantity, you’ve got lunch taken care of for the next couple of days!

egg roll in a bowl meal prep

We’ve been enjoying this around our house regularly (at least every other week) for the last couple of months and I don’t intend to quit anytime soon :).  Enjoy!

*Note – you need a pretty large skillet or wok for this!  Alternatively, you could use 2 smaller skillets and split it evenly amongst them.

egg roll in a bowl in skillet

*Second note – if you use a lot of fresh garlic, I highly recommend investing in a good garlic press!  My mom bought me one from Pampered Chef for Christmas, and it’s a total game changer!  You don’t even have to peel the garlic!  Just pop the clove in, press the handle down, and scrape off the perfectly minced garlic!  Remove the skin, and repeat!  Find a similar one here, with great reviews!

egg roll in a bowl served up

Egg Roll Bowls

Servings: 6            Time: 30 min

Ingredients:

  1. 1 lb reduced fat ground pork
  2. 1 lb lean (93% or higher) ground turkey
  3. 5 cloves garlic, minced
  4. 1 large onion, large dice
  5. 14 oz bag coleslaw mix
  6. 14 oz bag broccoli slaw
  7. 1 T ground ginger
  8. 1 t ground pepper
  9. 4 T coconut aminos or reduced sodium soy sauce (I used 2 T of each)
  10. 3 T rice wine vinegar (I’ve also used apple cider vinegar)
  11. 2 T sesame oil
  12. 3-4 T sriracha (or Whole30 compliant chile/hot sauce)
  13. About 5 green onions, white and green parts, sliced
  14. 2 T sesame seeds
  15. Fresh cilantro for topping, optional

Instructions:

  1. Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the turkey and pork and cook until no longer pink.  Drain the fat from the skillet.
  2. Add the onion and garlic and saute a few minutes.
  3. In the meantime, whisk together the ginger, pepper, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sriracha, and soy sauce or coconut aminos.
  4. Add the bag of coleslaw mix to the meat and onion mixture.  Pour about half of the liquid mixture to the skillet, and gently toss it, allowing the coleslaw to cook down a bit and make more room in the skillet.  This is where it gets a bit tricky to keep it all contained in one skillet so be patient.  🙂 Start adding the broccoli slaw mixture, in smaller batches, to allow room in the pan.  It helps to use tongs and just kind of flip portions of the mixture around.  Continue adding the liquid to help flavor and steam the veggies down.  Once it’s all added, test for seasoning and add more sriracha, salt, pepper, etc. as needed.
  5. Portion into bowl, top with green onion, cilantro, and sesame seeds.
  6. Dig in!

Nutrition Info:

380 total cal, 21 g fat, 10 g carbs, 31 g protein