My family and I have been making this recipe for years. It is a delicious, no-cooking-required way to get in a ton of healthy vegetables with very little effort. The Asian Peanut Dressing is the star of the show, while the vegetables add some brilliant color and crunch. The salad itself will keep in the fridge for several days (which is good because it is a very large recipe!). The dressing will keep for a few weeks in a sealed jar in the refrigerator, so feel free to double the batch so you have a lot of leftovers.
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Asian Peanut Dressing
To make the salad dressing, you just throw all of the ingredients into a blender (I used this one) and blend until smooth. A few notes about the ingredients:
- Peanut butter – we use natural peanut butter in our house, so that is what I used for this recipe, but any kind of peanut butter will work. Consider checking labels to see if you can find the one with the lowest amount of sodium in it.
- Rice Vinegar – be sure to check the labels carefully. Some rice vinegars are labels as “seasoned” which means they are loaded with sodium. You want to select a rice vinegar that contains no added sodium like this one.
- Lime Juice – I use bottled lime juice in this recipe, but you can also make fresh lime juice from a lime (I’m too lazy for that)
- Canola Oil – canola oil has a mild flavor profile which enables us to add some healthy fats and calories without detracting from the other flavors of the dressing.
- Lite Soy Sauce – soy sauce is a sodium bomb whether you regular or lite, but since the lite does have less sodium in it, we use that in this dressing.
- Fresh Garlic – make sure you peal the garlic before throwing it in the blender. The easiest way to peel garlic is to take the flat side of a large knife and smash the garlic clove. Then the peel will come off effortlessly!
- Fresh Ginger Root – I strongly recommend using fresh ginger in this recipe. I’ve attempted to replicate the recipe using dried ginger and always end up using too much powder. If you must use dried, then look up the conversions for fresh to dried ginger….and then use half that!
- Sambal Oelek Chile Sauce – you should be able to find this in the international section of your grocery store, but I linked to the amazon product just in case that is easier. This is also a pretty high sodium food, but a little goes a long way. This adds a hint of heat to our dressing that gives it a nice kick (note: this is VERY spicy, so don’t eat it on it’s own. MY brother made the mistake of thinking it was jarred salsa once time and scooped out a big chip full of the stuff. Instant regret!). You could also use sriracha sauce if that’s what you have on hand. I prefer the sambal because it has less sugar.
- Stevia Powder – oops! Completely forgot to include this one in the picture, but you’ll definitely need a sweetener of some sort for this dressing. My sweetener of choice is stevia. I like that it has no impact on my blood sugar, and I’m sensitive to sugar alcohols, so I prefer to avoid those. This recipe calls the stevia powder, which is more concentrated that the granulated forms. so be sure you are using the correct type of sweetener when measuring. If you are using a different sweetener, you should adjust accordingly.
Salad Mix
One key thing about incorporating more vegetables into your diet is to ensure that you incorporate a variety of colors. The colors of the vegetables gives an indication as to the types of phytonutrients that are inside them. Not to mention that the variety of colors makes this salad look beautiful. A few things to note about the ingredients:
- Carrots – go ahead and buy them pre-shredded – especially if you do not have a food processor. We want them pretty small, and cutting a large carrot into small pieces is a pretty tedious task!
- Kale – this is a hearty leafy green. Unlike some other green salad vegetables like spinach or lettuce, kale does not wilt quickly. This helps keep the salad fresher longer in the fridge. If you don’t like kale, you can substitute green cabbage into the recipe to ensure you are getting your greens. However, the peanut dressing is so delicious that I don’t think you’ll notice the taste of the kale too much. 🙂
- Red Cabbage – like kale, cabbage is a hearty vegetable that will keep well in the fridge even after being cut. The deep purple color is packed with phytonutrients called anthocyanins which are believed to play a roll in preventing cellular aging and reducing the formation of blood clots. For both of these vegetables, I prefer to let my food processor do the cutting to save time, but you could probably cut them thin enough with a knife if needed.
- Red bell pepper – In my experience, bell peppers don’t do so well in the food processor. The shapes and sizes are not very uniform, and they can sometimes be chopped to thinly make them almost watery. I prefer to cut these by hand.
- Green onions – these are a bit more delicate than some of the other hearty vegetables in this dish, so i recommend cutting these by hand too. Fortunately, chopping green onions is extremely simple and fast!
Last, but not least, the peanut garnish. Use unsalted or lightly salted peanuts for this. To crush them into smaller pieces, you can place them in an unsealed plastic storage bag and use a meat mallet or frying pan to gentle smash. I don’t mix these into the salad ahead of time for a couple of different reasons:
- I like the crunch that they provide in the dish. If they were pre-mixed in, then they could potentially get a bit soggy with all the high water vegetables.
- They are somewhat high in protein. Depending on what else you’re eating in the day, you may want the discretion to skip the garnish and just add a bit of extra oil to make up for the calories.
Be sure you have a large bowl to store this salad in. It is huge. The bowl that I use has a 5.5 quart capacity and is almost completely filled up.
Kale Salad with Asian Peanut Dressing
Nutrition:
Nutrition:
8
servings25
minutes0
minutes0
minutesIngredients
- Dressing
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup canola oil
2 T lite soy sauce
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 T ginger root, fresh
2 t sambal olek chile sauce
1/4 t stevia powder
- Salad Mix
10 oz shredded carrots
1 each red bell pepper
1 bunch green onions
1 bunch kale
1 head purple cabbage
- Garnish
8 oz crushed unsalted peanuts
Directions
- Dressing
- Combine all ingredients into blender and blend until smooth. Store any leftover dressing in an airtight jar in the refrigerator.
- Salad Mix
- Slice bell pepper into matchstick size pieces by hand. Cut green onions into quarter inch size piece. Using a food processor is not recommended for these vegetables.
- Remove stems from kale, then thinly slice kale in food processor or by hand.
- Thinly slice cabbage, or use food processor.
- Combine all ingredients into large bowl and toss to evenly distribute.
- Assembling salad
- Portion out 215g of salad mix and 50g of dressing using a food scale.
- Sprinkle 1 oz of crushed peanuts onto salad. Note: to crush peanut, place in an unsealed plastic sandwich bag and gentle pound with a meat mallet or heavy pan.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- This dish is considered high potassium.
- If you need to reduce the protein further, omit the crushed peanut garnish and add an additional tablespoon of oil to the salad along with the dressing.
