Chinese Chicken Salad
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Toss up a storm of flavors with the Chinese Chicken Salad! It’s a crunchy, juicy delight that you can prep ahead and eat for days to come for lunch or dinner!
This is a super easy take on a popular salad that you’ve probably had before. What I like about it is that it keeps in the fridge really well so I can make a batch on the weekend and eat it for lunch for three or four days and it just gets better every day the flavors are allowed to marinate and blend.
If you love super easy salads make sure you check out some of my other recipes like Broccoli Salad With Bacon and Raisins, Quick Easy Greek Salad, Summer Corn Salad, and Crunchy Refrigerator Salad.
What You’ll Need to Make Chinese Chicken Salad:
- Vegetable oil
- Rice Vinegar
- Cole Slaw Mix (or shred your own cabbage, see recipe for how much)
- Matchstick Carrots
- Cooked Chicken breasts
- Chicken flavored Ramen
- Salt
- Pepper
- Green Onions
- Sliced Almonds
Helpful Kitchen Tools
*I know the Rice Vinegar isn’t one of those ingredients that most folks have on hand and I started to substitute it but it costs less than $2 at my grocery store and is easy to find in the Asian Foods section.
How to Make Chinese Chicken Salad:
To start with, lets take two packages of Chicken Flavored Ramen Noodles, set the seasoning packets aside (You’ll use those in our dressing) and crumble them up coarsely. Place those on a rimmed baking sheet along with about a cup of slivered almonds.
Stir them up a bit.
Now place that in a 350 degree oven for about ten minutes or so, until lightly browned.
Stir it up again about five minutes into the toasting.
Take your oil, Rice Vinegar, Sugar, Seasoning Packets from the packages of Ramen Noodles, Salt, and Pepper and put them all in a big old mason jar.
Put the lid on that jar and shake for all you’re worth.
You now have your dressing! Set this aside.
**You could also use a blender for this but a mason jar is usually handy around my house.
Get a large bowl and place your cabbage, carrots, green onions, and chopped chicken in it.
Here is our dressing. Now just pour that over our salad mixture.
I know you may be thinking “This is cabbage, this isn’t a salad” but really, by the time we add this dressing and let it marinate a bit, it will feel much more like lettuce, but it won’t get all soft and nasty like lettuce would.
Give that a really good stir to get everything coated well. Then, you can make it fit in a 9×13 pan or your biggest Pyrex mixing bowl (it will shrink down a bit after a few hours) and then cover it and place it in the fridge.
This Chinese chicken salad really needs to sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight, to allow the flavors to blend and develop.
I haven’t forgotten about the ramen and almonds! Don’t put them on the salad until you are ready to serve it. I store that mix in a plastic bag and put it on the individual servings.
And voila! Our beautiful Chinese Chicken Salad – that I eat for lunch several days a week 🙂
Ingredients
- 2 Chicken Breasts cooked, cooled, and cubed
- 2 pkgs Cole Slaw Mix Shredded cabbage, about ten cups
- 1 package MatchStick Carrots about 2 cups
- 2 packages Chicken Flavor Ramen Noodles
- 1 Cup Sliced Almonds
- 3 -4 Green Onions sliced
- 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
- 1/3 Cup Rice Vinegar
- 3/4 Cup Sugar
- 2 Seasoning Packets from the Ramen Noodle packages
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Pepper
Instructions
- Break up ramen noodles onto jelly roll pan, reserving seasoning packets for dressing. Stir in almonds. Place in 350 degree oven and toast about ten minutes, stirring halfway through, until very lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Once cooled, store in large zipper seal bag.
- In Quart size mason jar, place both seasoning packets from Ramen, oil, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Put lid on tightly and shake vigorously until well blended. Set aside.
- Dump cole slaw mix, carrots, green onions, and chicken in a very large bowl (or dish pan). Stir well. Shake dressing again and then pour over all. Stir to coat. You can make it fit in a 9x13 pan or your biggest Pyrex mixing bowl and then cover it and place it in the fridge. It really needs to sit in the fridge for several hours, or overnight, to allow the flavors to blend and develop. Top each serving with toasted Ramen/Almond mix.
Makes 8-10 servings. Note: This makes a lot but lasts several days in the refrigerator and makes a great all in one meal for lunch or supper.
One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.
~Anonymous
Used shredded Napa cabbage and Iceberg mixed, no ramen noodles, almonds, slivered carrots, green onions and a rotisserie chicken from the market shredded. Made a dressing of rice vinaigrette, 1/2 tsp. sesame oil, sugar and grated ginger. I don’t use the ramen packets as they are loaded with salt.
So glad you were able to customize it to your tastes Claudine!!!
Waaaaay too sweet! Maybe I didn’t read the recipe correctly but 3/4 cup of sugar???
I LOVE ALL sweet things & prefer sweet to savory anyway but this is a bit cloying. I plan to try again with less sugar. Unless you like candy in your salad I’d reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup and taste. You can always add more sugar but once you follow the recipe you had better like candy-salad!
I’m sure it’s an awesome dish w/less sugar.
Does anyone have any suggestions for
salvaging my salad?
For ten cups of cabbage, close to three cups of chicken, 3 cups ramen, 2 cups carrots, 1 cup almonds, and about a cup of green onions, the proportion of 3/4 cup of sugar (combined with vinegar as well) has never made my salad overly sweet. Nearly twenty cups of veggies and such, maybe you ended up with less?
I would add more veggies for a salvage option. 🙂
Can you half this? (This is way too much for hubby and me……..)
You sure can!!
This reminds me of an Asian salad I make but I add Mandarin oranges and I am bummed cause my daughter just found out that she is allergic to almonds so the noodles will b enough crunch
Substitute toasted, chopped pecans instead of the almonds.
I have a variation if this recipe:
No meat used,
chopped broccoli instead of carrots,
pecans instead of almonds and BEEF flavored ramen noodles.
The bowl always comes home empty, wherever I take it!
I’m going to make this, but I will divide it in half. I think it will be fine in a smaller quantity.
how do you cook the chicken for this
Hello. Brown it in a pan with some olive oil. If the chicken breasts are thick, just slice them in half starting at the longest end, making 2 halves. Medium heat for about 5 mins. on each side. For added flavor, drizzle some Teriaki juice over them. Then slice them up for the salad.
You can just boil the chicken breasts.
I had my hubby grill up a few extra the last time he was BBQ-ing. Tasted great.
Christy, I researched salad once, and it was actually usually a picnic thing, head lettuce wedges, wedged tomatoes, green onions, sliced peeled cucumbers and radishes, all placed on the serving dish and you ate them without dressing. My mother learned to cook from her mother who was from Missouri, and this was generally how salad was served in our house all my life, coleslaw wasn’t called salad, and vinagrette was the only dressing ever used on a sliced or French salad.
Just made this for church dinner tomorrow. Yummy!!!