Look on the menu of many restaurants from Wendy’s, Applebee’s, Ruby’s Diner to Wolfgang Pucks, Chinois, you’re bound to see the very popular Chinese chicken salad.  Normally it’s made with iceberg lettuce, chicken with the skin still on, or even fried chicken, deep fried noodles and a high fat Asian dressing.  Happily my skinny makeover really delivers a delicious and nutritious crunch thanks to the Napa cabbage, sliced almonds, pea pods, scallions and lean skinless chicken breast.  Finally, my skinny homemade Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing is one of the best you’ll ever taste.  The skinny for one serving is  380 calories and 16 grams of fat including the dressing.  The shocking fat facts of Ruby’s Diner salad are 1447 calories and 110 grams of fat per salad!  The sodium content is scary high at 3959mg of sodium.  This skinny recipe has only 392mg of sodium and packs a lot of fiber with almost 8 grams…

Prep time: 15 minutes (including dressing)

Ingredients

1 recipe for Chicken Chinese Salad Dressing (recipe follows)

1 head Napa cabbage, washed and dried, shredded or chopped

2 cups chicken breast, cooked and chopped (skinless)

1 cup Chinese pea pods, chopped

3 scallions (green onions), thinly sliced

1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

⅓ cup almonds, sliced

1 cup Chow Mein noodles

Instructions

1. Prepare the Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing and refrigerate, see below

2. In a large bowl, add all the salad ingredients except the Chow Mein noodles.

3. Toss the salad with the dressing and divide onto 4 plates.

4. Sprinkle each salad with ¼ cup Chow Mein noodles and serve.

Makes 4 main course servings

Healthy Benefit
Napa cabbage (also called Chinese cabbage) is a good source of vitamin A, folic acid, and potassium.  It also contains a fair amount of fiber.

Shopping Tip
There are a few other variations you can try, if you’d like.  First, you can substitute turkey for the chicken breasts, if you want to make it a vegetarian salad, leave out the meat. It’s still delicious!

Choose Napa cabbage with firm, tightly packed heads, and crisp green-tipped leaves.

Chow Mein noodles can be found in the Asian section of most supermarkets. I used LA CHOY Chow Mein noodles available in a 5 oz can. They contain only 2.5 grams of fat for ¼ cup.

Weight Watchers (old points) 8
Weight Watchers POINTS PLUS 10

Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing

Wait until you taste this fabulous dressing.  It’s sooo delicious.  It’s hard to believe it’s so low in fat and calories. Don’t worry about using ranch as the base. By the time you add all the other ingredients, it doesn’t taste like ranch dressing at all.  The skinny on our dressing for 2 tablespoons is 51 calories and 2.7 grams of fat.  The full fat dressing is 174 calories and 18 grams of fat for just 2 tablespoons. Try it as a dip for carrots, pea pods, and celery.  Yum…

Prep time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

½ cup Nancy’s Skinny Ranch Dressing (get recipe here)

¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon chopped or crushed ginger (from a jar)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

1. In a small bowl whisk together all of the ingredients.

2. Pour into an airtight container and refrigerate for 1 hour to thicken.

3. Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing will keep in the refrigerator at least 1 week.

Makes ¾ cup

Shopping Tip
Chopped or crushed ginger (in a jar) can be found in the produce section near garlic (in a jar.)

Prep Tip
To toast the sesame seeds, sprinkle on a piece of foil.  Place under the broiler for about 1-2 minutes until toasted. Keep an eye on them. They brown very quickly.

Quick Tip
To chill the dressing faster, place in the freezer for 20 minutes (set a timer so you don’t forget about it!)

Weight Watchers (old points) 1
Weight Watchers POINTS PLUS 1

This entry was posted Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Recipes. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.