Chinese Chicken Salad
A tasty, satisfying, crunchy salad with a salty-sweet flavor combination. Filled with chicken, vegetables, and topped with a delicious dressing and crunchy wonton strips.
Crisp, cool, crunchy, salty-sweet, and full of flavor.
This Chinese chicken salad will be on repeat from now through summer, so be sure to bookmark it, print it, share it, tell your friend, or whoever. Heck, invite them over and have a party.
It’s warm and sunny out and no better time to gather all the ingredients, fry up some crisp wonton,s and enjoy.
Add in vermicelli noodles if you prefer, or fry them for the crunch. I myself like fried wontons on top. They take only a couple of minutes to make, and they are crunchy and addictive in the best way possible!
Now onto the chicken. I like chicken breast for this salad. I also like it shredded. But you can easily served dice, chopped, or large strips of chicken if you prefer.
You can bake, boil, steam, pressure cook, slow cook, use rotisserie chicken, canned chicken, leftover cooked chicken, cast-iron cooked chicken, and grilled chicken. I also have an Asian Chicken recipe that would go great in this.
Pretty much… any way you want to prepare the chicken, it’ll go well in this salad.
OMG, I love going to Chinese food restaurants and having them with spicy Asian mustard and a little duck sauce. the spicy-sweet combo is my favorite.
Which leads me to the wontons, dipping them in the duck sauce and mustard, made going to the restaurant all the more fun, but I was so happy that if you ordered takeout, they packed them up too.
How to cook the crispy wontons
To make the wonton strips, buy square wonton wrappers in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, slice them 1/2″ thick, then separate them so they don’t stick together. They are typically well cornstarched and will easily be separated.
Heat an inch or so of oil in a small pot, a 2-quart pot works well with high sides to avoid splashing and oil going everywhere, but small enough that you don’t need a ton of oil either. You’ll heat the oil to 350°, drop in some wontons to cover the bottom of the pot, and give them a toss, they’ll fry up quickly, about 2-3 minutes. Use tongs and keep moving them.
You can find more of my Asian Recipes Here.
I love the cold orange pieces, use fresh slices or canned mandarin orange segments.
Other fun toppings for this salad are cashsews or sliced almonds.
Add some sesame seeds as well.
Chinese Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 8 cups chopped romaine lettuce, 1 very large head or 2 smaller heads of lettuce
- 4 cups green cabbage, shredded , napa cabbage is another option
- 2 cups red cabbage, chopped
- 2 medium carrots, julianned
- 3 green onions, sliced
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro , start with a small bunch
- 3 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast , options in post
- 1 11oz can mandarin oranges, drained
- 1/3 cup cashews or sliced almonds
- 1-2 cups fried wonton strips , instruction in post
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds , toasted and black can both be used
Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing
- 1 tablespoon oil, avocado , I use avocado oil
- 1 tablespooon sesame oil , I use toasted sesame oil
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar , or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar , honey or maple syrup
- 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger, or 1/4 tsp dry ginger
- 1 teaspoon garlic paste, or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice , orange juice or lemon juice
- pinch salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place all cut salad items into a large bowl.
- Mix the dressing in a measuring cup or glass jar with a whisk, allowing the sweetener is dissolved and the dressing is well-blended.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetables and chicken and toss to uniformly distribute the dressing.
- Top with nuts, wonton strips, sesame seeds, and mandarin oranges.