Asian Chicken Salad

5 from 1 vote

If you like the sesame chicken salad from Panera, you'll love our Asian chicken salad! Made with fresh, healthy ingredients and a homemade sesame salad dressing, this recipe is the perfect summer lunch.

Servings salads

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 5

Total Time 25

Ingredients

Sesame Salad Dressing

½ cup rice vinegar
¼ cup hoisin sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp low sodium soy sauce

Sesame Chicken

¾ lb chicken breast chopped into bite-size pieces (about 1 inch diameter)
2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp minced garlic
½ tsp sesame oil

Salad

9 oz chopped hearts of romaine
¼ head red cabbage chopped
½ cup chopped almonds
½ cup shredded carrots
3 medium scallions sliced
Toasted sesame seeds
Wonton strips

Instructions

Sesame Salad Dressing

To make the salad dressing, combine rice vinegar, hoisin, sesame oil, and soy sauce in a jar. Seal tightly and shake vigorously to combine. Refrigerate until needed, and stir or shake before using.

Sesame Chicken

Next, add the chicken to a bowl with soy sauce, rice vinegar, minced garlic, and sesame oil. Stir to combine and fully coat the chicken. Marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Heat a frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and the marinade, and stir fry until the chicken is cooked through, about 4 to 5 minutes. Drain the excess liquid and transfer the chicken to a bowl.

Salad

Finally, assemble the salads. Mix the lettuce and cabbage to create a base, then top with chicken, almonds, carrots, and scallions, evenly distributing the ingredients among the salads. Top each salad with toasted sesame seeds and wonton strips, and drizzle with the sesame dressing. Serve immediately.

Notes

Sesame salad dressing: This dressing is super easy to make in a Mason jar - you can even use the measurement lines on the outside of the jar to measure your larger volume liquids instead of dirtying measuring cups!

Salad ingredient prep: You can chop and prepare all the salad ingredients while the chicken marinates. To make homemade toasted sesame seeds, you can toast sesame seeds in a small frying pan over medium heat until they're golden brown, about 5 to 8 minutes, giving them a shake every few minutes or so.

Meal prep: These healthy salads are great for weekly meal prep. You can cook up a big batch of chicken at the beginning of the week, prep your veggies, and store everything in containers for easy day-of assembly. Check out our blog post above for more tips on how to meal prep this salad.

Storing leftovers: You'll want to store any leftover chicken, salad dressing, almonds, sesame seeds, and wonton strips all in separate containers - this will prevent things from getting soggy. The chicken and sesame dressing will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days. Store the almonds, sesame seeds, and wonton strips at room temperature.

The romaine, cabbage, carrots, and scallions can get mixed together if you want - see our notes on meal prep in the blog post above.

When you want to eat the leftovers, you can either assemble everything cold or reheat the chicken. Warm it in the microwave for about 30 seconds per serving, or in a small frying pan over medium heat for 5 to 8 minutes.

Author: Nicole Langdon

Calories: 366kcal

Course: Lunch, Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: American, Asian

Keyword: almonds, carrots, chicken breast, garlic, healthy, hoisin, red cabbage, restaurant style, rice vinegar, romaine lettuce, scallions, sesame oil, sesame seeds, soy sauce, summer, takeout, wonton strips

Nutrition