Asian Chicken Salad
With perfectly juicy, tender teriyaki chicken and the most amazing peanut dressing ever! It’s quick, simple and perfect for a crowd!
Now that we are smack-dab in the middle of summer, it can only mean one thing.
It’s grilling season! And Walmart is the perfect resource to grab all of my summer needs. From their antibiotic-free chicken to their local grown produce, I can find everything I need for this gorgeous Asian chicken salad!
The chicken is combined with a simple teriyaki marinade (homemade or store-bought is fine), which is then grilled to perfection.
It’s juicy, it’s tender, and it’s packed with so much flavorful. Not to mention, it has the most perfect grill marks. Side note: if you don’t have access to a grill, you can use a grill pan on the stovetop but note that it will get super smoky!
From there, we have all of our fun goodies – from the romaine lettuce to the shredded cabbage, carrots, cashews, cilantro, green onions and my two big time faves – chow mein noodles and mandarin oranges!
It’s so stinking easy, you can serve this up for a large crowd for easy entertaining, or you can whip this up on any given weeknight!
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Walmart. As always, I only partner with brands that I love and truly believe in, allowing me to create more quick and easy recipes to get us through the week without breaking the bank. All opinions expressed are my own.
Asian Chicken Salad
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Marketside Antibiotic Free Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
- 1 cup teriyaki sauce, homemade or store-bought
- 1 ½ tablespoons canola oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 head romaine, roughly chopped
- 2 cups shredded red cabbage
- 1 ½ cups julienned carrots
- ¾ cup crunchy chow mein noodles
- 1 11-ounce can mandarin oranges, drained
- ½ cup roasted cashews
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 4 green onions, thinly sliced
For the peanut dressing
- 5 tablespoons peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 ½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 clove garlic, minced
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar, garlic and 1/4 cup warm water until smooth. Place in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
- In a gallon size Ziploc bag or large bowl, combine chicken and teriyaki sauce; marinate for at least 2 hours to overnight, turning the bag occasionally. Drain the chicken from the marinade.
- Preheat grill to medium heat.
- Brush with canola oil; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add chicken to grill, and cook, turning occasionally, until chicken is completely cooked through, reaching an internal temperature of 165 degrees F, about 10 minutes.
- To assemble the salad, place romaine lettuce in a large bowl; top with chicken, cabbage, carrots, chow mein noodles, mandarin oranges, cashews, cilantro and green onions. Pour the peanut dressing on top of the salad and gently toss to combine.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
I want to make this as part of a dinner for those at a homeless shelter (approximately 30). Any suggestions for what else to serve with it? Thanks
This salad was AMAZING and beautiful! Arranged it on a platter with rows for each salad ingredient and kebobs for the chicken grilled on top. Added some of the mandarin orange juice to thin the dressing and added wonton strips, toasted almonds to the salad and toasted sesame oil and fresh ginger root to the dressing. Will make this over and over. Just a wonderful balance of crunch and color and asian flavors. The ginger root was a welcome addition to this already yummy recipe.
This salad was fantastic! My husband kept saying “this is really good”. For the dressing I used cashew butter. I strongly recommend this wonderful salad for a light dinner.
I used premium salad and coleslaw packages because I’m too lazy to chop that many vegetables. I also used extra crunchy peanut butter and at least quadrupled the dressing ingredients because overkill is so underrated.
AND WOW!!! DAMN DELICIOUS
Thanks for the recipe
Very easy to make and so tasty! Made it exactly as listed just in slightly smaller portions since there is just two of us. It’s always hard to convince my partner that salad can be a meal but he loved this one so we’ll make it again. My dressing started out very thick and then I reread the instructions and noticed it says to add water and when I did it was perfect. It would be helpful to put the water in the ingredient list so it doesn’t get missed. Love this and now I’m excited to try some of your other recipes!
I really loved this and will make it again. And again. And again. However, the dressing didn’t turn out right. I wonder if it was supposed to be natural peanut butter? I just kept adding more soy sauce and rice vinegar and I also added oil until I got it to the consistency I wanted.
Can I give this a bazillion stars? Five seriously doesn’t seem adequate enough! This was seriously one of the best salads I’ve ever eaten! The flavors are perfectly balanced and the crunch is addicting. It will definitely be going into steady rotation. Thanks for an amazing recipe!
This was absolutely delicious! I love your recipes! I used chicken breasts and they were perfect! Such a colorful salad with a great dressing!
To much peanut butter,the dressing is to thick
I’m one of those people that simply can’t tolerate Cilantro 🙁
Substitute suggestion? Flat-leaf parsley? Can’t wait to try this out – looks delicious! TY.
Not bad. I make my own Teriyaki sauce (beats anything you can buy). I also added some Tamarind sauce as well as some fish sauce to the peanut butter sauce and changed up the salad stuff.
Took this to a Bible study potluck and received rave reviews, especially the peanut butter dressing.
This was just delicious. I bought premade teriyaki sauce for the chicken and will make homemade next time. If you have a marinade to include that would be great! The store bought stuff is less than wonderful.
Looks yummy. Do you post the nutritional data?
Abs0lutely delicious!!! The dressing is so good. I have made a different peanut butter based dressing that just tasted like peanut butter. BUT, this one….was perfect!!!! I ended up marinating my chicken with a different marinade, but all the ingredients went together perfectly. Don’t skip out on the mandarins! My husband and I will be making this many more times!!!!
This was so good! I used the teriyaki sauce recipe you have with the Teriyaki Chicken noodle bowls to marinade the chicken, it’s my favorite teriyaki recipe! I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow, leftover salad!
Love the salad part of this recipe but the dressing was super thick. I was turned off by it. I added more soy then water to try and thin it out but it just got saltier and not much thinner. I’ll probably use just some teriyaki sauce instead.
Easy to make, healthy and delicious!
This salad is SO GOOD! The balance of fresh/sweet/salty/savory is perfect and the textural variety is great. My partner doesn’t usually consider salads a meal and even he is satisfied with this one.
I use the reusable divided take out containers to meal prep the toppings – nuts and noodles in one side and the other toppings on the other with the dressing in a tiny Tupperware. Just takes a minute to prep the greens when you’re ready to eat.
I am having a hard time finding rice wine vinegar. I can only find rice vinegar. Can I use rice vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar? (I get conflicting answers from researching this online.) I don’t want to ruin the dressing! Thanks!
Hi Dixie! I’m a fellow fan, and NOT part of the website… but I used Rice Wine Vinegar and think it turned out very well.
Great salad! Rice wine vinegar and rice vinegar are the same thing – just labeled differently by manufacturers. I love the addition of the mandarin oranges in this!
If making chicken in the oven what temperature should I cook it at and how long???? I don’t BBQ how else should i make the chicken?
This has become a regular for our family! I make a few simple changes: buy romaine salad with the red cabbage in it (rather than buy it separately), add cucumbers, and use the flat crispy wonton strips instead of the chow mein ones. Thanks for the great dinner idea!!
So So good!! a new family favorite
This was so good that I didn’t have any leftovers. My family loved it. My husband is picky when it comes to salads and he went back for seconds. I have made other peanut sauces but I would have to say this is by far my favorite. I made it exactly as the recipe called for. It will make our meal rotation especially with the summer coming.
I was looking to make Chef Chu’s famous Chinese chicken salad….
BUT…. Your recipe looks like DA BOMB!
Gonna try yours instead!
Thanks for the share.
Mo
Yummy! I used store bought teriyaki sauce and it was great. This is a great summer salad.
We love that! Thanks for sharing, Leah!
LOOKING GREAT, YUM YUM!!
What can I substitue for peanut butter. I cannot use it because of family allergies.
As this is a peanut dressing, I, unfortunately, do not recommend a substitute for the peanut butter. It may be best to use a different dressing entirely.
You may want to try sunflower seed butter (Sun butter). I have found it to be a really good substitute for peanut butter.
Hi Marge!
I am looking at doing, for first time, Chinese food total meal for my folks. This salad looks AHHHHHHH MAYYYYY ZINGGG!
A thought on your question about not using peanuts. Can you use another type of butter? Cashew? etc.
Or…. I have a vinaigrette , easy homemade that goes great with this type of salad and adjust to your taste…
You’ll need a dressing container to place the following in:
1. Sesame seed oil and olive oil, use less of sesame oil for it is very strong in taste
2. Pepper
3. Buy a few cans of mandarin oranges, save the juice and use in dressing.
4. Shake it up!
That’s it.
You can add other things to it if you want to jazz it up a bit more.
Try it!
Mo
I’ve made a very similar sauce subbing with Almond Butter and it’s really good!
I’m a big fan of your recipes, but I’m also a professional editor….I’m always afraid that I will offend the audience, but I need to point out that there is a typo in the recipe. Your site is so perfect in all other ways… I know you would like to correct the spelling of chow mein…?
Thank you for letting me know. You’re the best, Vicki!
Also, somewhere it says “with so much flavorful” – thanks for sharing all of this goodness! Your site is one of my favorites, and I’m constantly sharing your posts to a healthy eating/exercising group I belong to. You’re helping us enjoy healthy living!
VICKI, I AM A FAN OF HERS ALSO… Also her great recipes…..
I love people like you, Vicki! They say editors are born.
oops, sorry…see someone else asked the same question.
Sounds wonderful except for one thing…I have people with peanut/peanut butter allergies. Would the dressing be good without it, or would you suggest some other kind of dressing> Thank you!
Wow – I don’t normally comment on recipe sites but I have to say this salad was absolutely amazing. We made it exactly as written and everything was perfect. Such an amazing blend of flavours and was a very satisfying dinner. Thank you so much!!!
I tried your Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken the other day and my family loved it!!! I also went ahead and signed up so I can try out some of your other recipes too!!! I was very impressed with so many of the recipes.
That’s so sweet! Thank you!
Your recipes look awesome and not too difficult to prepare… looking forward to trying them ! Thanks for showing up on my iPhone !
I’m curious as to what the bowl/platter is that you have displayed this recipe on? Looks beautiful!
It’s from World Market!
Making this tonight! It looks amazing and fresh!
That looks friggin’ delicious! I bet my whole family is going to love it!
Where is the nutritional content on your recipes? I love your cookbook because it tells me exactly what the content is of each meal!
Hi Ally! Nutritional information is provided only for select and some new recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, we recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”) to obtain such information. Hope that helps!
Not clear on the marinating time for the chicken. Recipe says “marinate for at least 2 hours to overnight, up to 4 hours”???
Alice, you can marinate for at least 2 hours to overnight. Hope that helps!
I was going to buy a ready made store bought whole chicken. Would I still complete the same steps as far a marinating the chicken for a couple of hours?
Unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. But if you get a chance to try it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
What would you recommend using for dressing for those with peanut allergies?
You can try this sesame vinaigrette instead! 🙂
https://damndelicious.net/2014/08/25/chinese-chicken-salad/
I was just making this for dinner tonight and noticed that the 1/4 cup of warm water is missing from the ingredient list for the dressing.
That is what is wrong with my dressing! Thank you for noticing this!
This salad looks fabulous! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Where do you buy good crunchy chow main noodles?
Most grocery stores should carry them!
U never disappoint with your recipes. This looks amazing. Thanks as always.
Thank you!
great of ingredients put together in a wonderful salad and love teriyaki too, thank you!
Glad you liked it!
Have you ever tried making this with Almond Butter instead of Peanut Butter?
Thank you!
I actually have not but it sounds amazing!