Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

HOLY SPICY-NESS BATMAN! I've been dying to make this since I pinned it on Pinterest and finally did. Now, I'm not a super awesome-can-handle-spicy-gal but I like a little hot here and there. Needless to say that my addition of a full serrano pepper was NOT the little spice I wanted ... but I ate it anyway ... as fast as I could ... because that's what you do with spicy food once you start mowing down!

I love love love this recipe from Pinch of Yum but I didn't add everything she did since I didn't have it on hand. My green onions I thought I had DIED. I totally forgot to get fresh cilantro from the store so I used my cilantro paste instead (can be found next the real herbs in the produce section). And I couldn't find a green mango or papaya so no fruit in this bad boy. I do like her suggestions of chopping and adding other crunchy veggies like cucumber or zucchini. I think yellow peppers might even make a good addition.

So here is how I made it today. Honey instead of sugar. No green onions, so I used red onion. Very thinly sliced and diced my cabbage (because who wants to eat a big leaf of raw cabbage? That stuff hard to chew!). The kicker is the dressing. HANDS DOWN. Throw whatever you want into the salad, the dressing is what makes it. Also: thank goodness again for my slap-choppy-thingy because getting my baby carrots, onions, hot pepper, and peanuts diced down was a snap. And life hack today: natural canned chicken in water. You gotta do what you can as you can.

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Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

• 1 Chicken Breast (boiled and chopped/shredded OR 1-20 oz. can natural chicken in water)
• 1/4 head of a big white cabbage - sliced thin or grated
• 1 large carrot or 1 c. baby carrots
• 1 green papaya (if you can find it!)
• 1/2 c. fresh cilantro
• 1/2 c. onions - diced
• 1/2 c. peanuts - chopped

Dressing:

• 2 cloves garlic - minced
• 1 serrano pepper - minced
• 2 tbsp. liquid aminos
• 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (or white)
• 1 tbsp. raw honey
• 1/2 a lime - squeezed
• 1 tbsp. EVOO
• ½ teaspoon fish sauce (found in the Asian section)
• ¼ cup peanut butter
• ¼ cup water

Slice, dice, shred, grate and make a happy salad with the crunchy stuff and chicken.

I put all the ingredients for the dressing in the processor and blended them until combined. You can use a blender for that too.

Pour over the salad and mix everything together.

Made 4 portions.

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I was prepping this at lightning speed trying to get it done so Dave could take some with him but that didn't happen. It still took me about 10-15 to throw together so prep is minimal.

I seriously would cut back on the hot pepper if you can't handle spice. If you don't have a hot pepper sitting around, you could use pepper flakes instead.

Also the honey: it offsets the vinegar and makes it more palatable so for as small of an amount as it is, I'm calling it ok for this dish!

I would love to have it with the papaya so if anyone sees a small green papaya around, tell me!

Challenge-Friendly: YES. I'm on Day #5 of my cleanse and this was awesome!