Chinese Chicken Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette

Crunchy, colorful vegetables team with shredded chicken and a creamy sesame ginger vinaigrette in this Chinese Chicken Salad. It makes a terrific main course meal for lunch or dinner, inspired by our recent trip to fabulous Charleston, South Carolina.

Chinese Chicken Salad

We'd been roaming around Charleston with our cameras all morning, happily lost in shooting old cobblestone streets, beautiful gardens, historic homes, and the city's famous ironwork. It's easy to lose track of time when you're completely absorbed, until your stomach reminds you that you've been ignoring it.

With so many terrific restaurants and cafes in Charleston, it's hard to choose where to eat. Several friends suggested we have lunch at Cru Cafe. It was worth the wait.

Cru Cafe, Charleston, SC

Serving up gourmet Lowcountry comfort food, Cru Cafe is off the beaten path in a classic, 18th century Charleston home with a lovely porch with a few tables where you can eat outside. And that we did, giving our tired feet a rest and our growling stomachs what they needed.

We both ordered the Chinese Chicken Salad and it really hit the spot. Light and crunchy with crisp greens, bell peppers, carrots, tender chicken, and a ginger vinaigrette. Knowing I would be wanting this at home, I snapped a picture and created my own recipe.

About Napa Cabbage

If you are not familiar with napa cabbage, it's a type of Chinese cabbage.  The head is oval in shape with crinkly leaves and a large center white rib. Napa cabbage is part of the nutritious cruciferous family of veggies, including kale, broccoli, broccolini, chards, cauliflower, bok choy, regular cabbage, Brussels sprouts, arugula, radishes, and daikon. Cru Cafe's salad had daikon radish in the salad but since I couldn't find any, I used regular radishes instead.

What Else to do With Napa Cabbage

• Use it in tacos instead of lettuce or standard green cabbage
• Upgrade your steakhouse-style iceberg wedge with napa cabbage
• Add it to a stir-fry
• Use it in a Caesar salad in stead of Romaine (which I like to do)
• Grill it
• Add thinly sliced ribbons to chicken soup

Chicken Options

You can use store rotisserie chicken, leftover whole roast chicken, or roast bone-in chicken breasts. Here's my easy method for Basic Chicken Breasts. 

The Dressing: Ginger Vinaigrette

Great salads need great dressing, right? Absolutely. This one is a creamy ginger dressing that's tasty and versatile. If you like this one, here's another creamy dressing, my Creamy Tahini Salad Dressing or this Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette

For better roasting, let chicken sit out of the fridge for about 45 minutes, then roast. When cool enough to handle, shred the meat, discarding the bones and skin. You will get approximately 10 ounces of chicken off a single 1 pound bone-in chicken breast, so do 2 breasts to serve four. You need 16 ounces of cooked chicken, so you'll have a little extra.

If you prefer boneless chicken breasts, poach approximately 1 ¼ pounds and slice for the salad. For how to poach chicken breasts use this recipe.

Charleston is one fantastic, historic American city you must visit. We have so many great photos from the trip. One thing is for sure, we must go back. Did I mention the Charleston classic, She Crab Soup? oh yum...maybe a future recipe.

Dietary Notes

Low Histamine

The sesame oil in the dressing should be safe and generally low risk. For the vinegar, try organic white vinegar if vinegar sensitive. For the creamy consistency, try tahini if you are sensitive to cashews (which are high in histamine). Tahini is sesame seed butter. Although there is a small amount of lime juice in the dressing, I suggest you skip it as lime is highly reactive and a histamine liberator. Everything in the salad should be safe. Do what works safely for you and the level of reactivity you are at. On ginger, it is generally well tolerated but do what is best for you and skip if needed.

Whole30

Use coconut aminos and swap date paste for the honey as no honey is allowed.

📖 Recipe