Vietnamese Spicy Cabbage and Chicken Salad
This recipe is taken from ‘Into the Vietnamese Kitchen’ by Andrea Nguyen. It is one of my favorite salads because of its clean and spicy flavors. Just like a mentaiko oroshi appetizer, a light hiyayakko or some yummy sashimi, it’s a great dish to make if you are on a diet as it is both satisfying and low in fat. I usually don’t use recipes from cookbooks to publish (this is my first one actually), but this Vietnamese spicy cabbage and chicken salad is worth sharing with everyone.
PrintVietnamese Spicy Cabbage and Chicken Salad
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Salad
- Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients
Scale
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 breasts boneless, skinless chicken
- 1 small red onion (thinly sliced)
- 3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1 small head cabbage (shredded)
- 1 carrot (peeled and shredded)
- 2 tablespoons cilantro (finely chopped)
For the dressing:
- 1 or 2 Thai or Serrano chilies (finely chopped)
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
- 6 tablespoons rice vinegar
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Fill a small sauce pan half full with water, add 1 tsp salt and bring to boil. Add chicken breasts. Bring the water back to boil, remove the pan from the heat and cover tightly. Let stand for 20 minutes. The chicken should be firm yet still yield a bit to the touch. Remove the chicken from the pan and discard the water. When cool enough to handle, shred with your fingers into thin pieces, pulling the meat along its natural grain. Put the chicken in a large bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
- Meanwhile, put the onion in a small bowl and add the vinegar just to cover. set aside for 15 minutes; the vinegar will reduce the harshness of the onion. Drain well and add to the bowl with the chicken, along with the cabbage, carrot and cilantro.
- To make the dressing, using a mortar and pestle (I used a blender), mash the chiles, garlic, sugar and salt together. scrape the paste into a bowl and add the fish sauce and rice vinegar, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt and to combine well.
- Just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad and toss to mix well. Taste and adjust the flavors to your liking (I don’t think it needs anything else, the flavors are perfectly balanced). Serve.
Nutrition
- Calories: 154
- Saturated Fat: 1
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I love this recipe and have made it several times. When I’ve been able to find fish sauce I’ve used a combination of Worcester sauce and Tamari. But I wouldn’t do this routinely – fish sauce is best. I think this recipe over does it with the vinegar. You don’t need that much to soak the onions. Plus, I rinse the onions after soaking them or I think they stay too sharp. If you’re not on a diet and want some carbs I serve with glass noodles with roughly ground peanuts and soy.
★★★★★
Thank you for such a yummy recipe.
★★★★★
I’d like to try this salad, but you’re instructions say to use fish sauce and it isn’t listed in your ingredient list. Please advise – how much fish sauce does it need?
Hi Judy, I’m sorry for the misprint! Thanks for letting me know, I’ve just made the changes (3 tablespoons fish sauce). This is one of my favorite salads of all time, I hope you like it as much as I do!
Your blog is awesome! I miss NYC food so much!
xoxo,
colormenana.blogspot.com
This looks amazing! Thanks, I’ll definitely be making this salad!