Oriental Chicken Salad - A refreshing meal for a summer evening

This was a salad I used to order at Nordstrom's restaurant. I often duplicated it at home using bottled Asian sesame dressing.  I haven't made this in a long time and decided to make it tonight, but I didn't have any bottled dressing, so I concocted my own version. Everyone liked it and it's all natural, no preservatives or additives.  No more bottled dressing for me!

This is one of those salads that you could throw almost anything into.  Tonight I used lettuce from my garden, but it's also great with spinach.  I'll give you the list of ingredients I used, but feel free to change it up.  I grilled boneless chicken breasts marinated in some of the dressing, but you could certainly purchase a rotisserie chicken, shred it and use that.

Sesame Dressing

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (I'm sure you could substitute white wine vinegar or something similar)
1/4 cup honey
3 Tablespoons sesame oil
1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger
4 large cloves of garlic, run through a garlic press

Combine all ingredients in a blender ( I actually used my Nutribullet) blend for a few seconds.

Set aside half of the dressing for the salad and use the remainder to marinate 2 large boneless chicken breasts.  Marinate for about one hour.  I grilled my chicken, but feel free to bake or cook on the stovetop.

Salad:

Romaine lettuce, spinach, leaf lettuce or any combination of thereof
2 - 3 carrots Cut into matchsticks. I actually used a peeler that cuts them into skinny strips.
1 cucumber seeded and cut into matchsticks
1 - 2 cups fresh snow peas
1 can mandarin orange sections drained
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Chow mein noodles

Thinly slice the cooked chicken breasts against the grain. Combine salad ingredients.  I served the chicken in a separate plate from the salad, but you could certainly combine them.  Top with dressing and chow mein noodles. Enjoy!

Please feel free to leave questions or comments in the "Comments" section below this post, and please share with your friends!

Happy Cooking,
Carol

a.k.a Nonnie