Chinese Chicken Salad

When I decided to make salad for dinner I got a dubious response from my boyfriend. Salad, really? I'm sure he was probably expecting to need a Taco Bell run after dinner or something. But I went ahead with it and boy am I glad I did! The original recipe says it serves four but I made the whole batch expecting to have leftovers for the next day. Nope. We devoured the whole thing between the two of us in one meal! So without further ado...

Heat the oven to 425 F. While the oven is heating, line a baking sheet with foil and place a rack inside. (You might notice, my baking sheet is NOT lined with foil. Hopefully you can learn from my error :) Lightly spray the rack and place two chicken breasts on top. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from the rack the let cool. Reduce the oven temp to 375 when you remove the chicken.

When the chicken is almost done, slice eight fresh wonton wrappers into four strips each. Around here, grocery stores have their wonton wrappers in a cooler in the produce section. Once you've taken the chicken off the rack, remove the rack and replace the foil in the pan with fresh foil sprayed with cooking spray. Separate the wonton wrapper strips and lay them out on the wrack. If you want them to be pretty, you can scrunch them up a little bit. Spray the wrappers lightly with cooking spray and then sprinkle with salt. Bake them at 375 for 7-9 minutes or until golden and crunchy. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 when you take them out.

Now lift the foil with the wonton wrappers off the baking sheet and set aside. Spread the almonds out evenly on the baking sheet and roast at 350 for 6-8 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and set aside.

While the wonton wrappers and almonds are toasting, go ahead and chop up half a head of romaine lettuce, half a head of napa cabbage, and three green onions and toss together in a large bowl. It's a good time to shred the chicken and toss it in with the lettuce as well.

For the dressing, mix together rice vinegar, soy sauce, sweet chile sauce, garlic, ginger, hot chile sauce, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp black pepper. Then whisk in the sesame and peanut oils.

If you're not familiar with buying rice vinegar and chile sauces, you can find them in the Asian section of the grocery store. I like using sambal oelek for my hot chile sauce. 

Also if you've never bought fresh ginger root, I'd highly recommend!! Dry ginger and ginger paste from a jar just don't have the same zip....and it's not as hard to work with as it looks like after a little bit of practice. The easiest way to peel ginger is to cut of a chunk about the size you'll need and use a spoon to scrape off the outer papery layer. Once that's done, a microplane grater works best but if you don't have that available you can chop it really fine or even throw it in a food processor to make a coarse paste.

By now everything should be cooled off so toss the greens with the chicken, almonds, sesame seeds, and about half the dressing. (I didn't want a particularly “wet” salad so I only used half the dressing, but suit yourself.) Serve, garnishing with the wonton strips. Enjoy!

Chinese Chicken Salad

2 chicken breasts

8 square fresh wonton wrappers

½ cup sliced almonds

1 Tbsp sesame seeds

½ small head napa cabbage, trimmed and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide strips (3-3 ½ cups)

½ head romaine lettuce, cut crosswise into ½ inch wide strips (1 ½-2 cups)

3 large green onions (white and green parts), thinly slice on the diagonal

¼ cup rice vinegar

1 ½ tbsp soy sauce

2 medium garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp fresh ginger, grated

½ tsp hot Asian chile sauce

¼ cup peanut oil

1 tbsp Asian sesame oil

Heat the oven to 425 F. Season the hcicken with salt and pepper. Roast on a rack set in a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil for 40-45 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from oven and reduce oven temp to 375 F. Let chicken cool and then shred.

Stack the wonton wrappers on a cutting board and cut them into ½ inch wide strips. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray lightly with cooking spray. Separate the strips, lay them on the baking sheet, and mist them lightly with the cooking spray. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Scrunch each strip to give it a wavy shape, if you like. Bake at 375 F for 7-9 minutes or until golden. Remove and reduce oven temp to 350 F.

Spread the sliced almonds on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 6-8 minutes or until golden.

In a medium bowl, combine the vinegar, soy sauce, sweet chile sauce, garlic, ginger, hot chile sauce, ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp black pepper. Gradually whisk in the peanut and sesame oils.

In a large bowl, toss the cabbage, romaine, chicken, green onions, sesame seeds and almonds together. Add enough dressing to coat well. Serve, garnishing with wonton strips.