Thai Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing

This Thai chicken salad with peanut dressing is an easy main dish salad that you can make in advance. It is wonderfully flavorful!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Rest time 1

Total Time 1 40

Servings servings

Calories 281kcal

1 pound cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts shredded, from about 20 ounces of raw chicken
2 cups coleslaw mix 5 ounces
¼ cup green onions thinly sliced
½ cup cilantro chopped

In a large salad bowl, whisk the peanut butter, water, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Whisk for a few minutes until smooth, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula once or twice.
Whisk in the red curry paste, garlic, and ginger. Check the mixture's consistency and add a bit more water if needed (start with a tablespoon). Your goal is to achieve dressing consistency. Not too thick, not too runny.

To the same bowl, add the shredded chicken, coleslaw mix, green onions, and chopped cilantro. Mix after each addition.
Mix the salad for a few more minutes, slowly and thoroughly, until all the salad components are well-coated in the dressing and there's no excess dressing pooling on the bottom.
Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate for one hour to allow the flavors to meld. Mix one more time, then serve.

If you need to cook the chicken breasts, place them in a rimmed baking dish, lightly spray them with oil, season with a pinch of salt and pepper, and bake them in a 450°F oven until cooked through, 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a plate and let them rest until cool enough to handle, then shred them. Here's a detailed recipe for baked chicken breasts.
While you can serve the salad immediately, I recommend covering it and refrigerating it for an hour or so to allow the flavors to meld. Mix it one more time before serving.
I use a no-stir peanut butter spread in the dressing. It contains palm oil, sugar, and salt in addition to peanuts. Some would object to those added ingredients, but I don't. It's fine to use natural peanut butter - the kind that contains just ground peanuts and that you need to stir. Depending on its thickness, you might need less or perhaps more water to achieve a salad dressing consistency. You might also want to add a touch of sweetener, such as a teaspoon of honey (real or sugar-free).
This salad keeps well in the fridge, in an airtight container, for 3-4 days. Just remember that if you used leftover chicken to make it, you should count the four days from the day the chicken was cooked.