Salad Days

Todays recipe is for Chinese Chicken Salad. Just in time for the Beijing Olympics! (Although I'm sure it's not even close to real Chinese, but it's yummy.) If you buy your chicken pre-cooked, you don't even have to heat up your kitchen.

Now if BigScottishJerk.com would quit eating it all before I could take a picture of it...seriously, we eat an entire salad bowl of the stuff between us. It's SO good.

I'm sure you've all had some incarnation of this salad, but this has more veggies and you can swap out the noodles if you don't want them, but you will need the little flavoring packets that come with the noodles for the dressing. I did notice when I was shopping the other day that Nissin now makes a baked ramen noodle (called Choice Ramen) that has a lot less fat and sodium...and it still tastes pretty much the same...in fact they're slightly crunchier than the fatty ones.

Chinese Ramen Noodle Salad

1 12 ounce bag broccoli slaw mix (Mann's is good)
1/2 head shredded green cabbage
2 packages chicken flavored ramen noodles
2/3 cup roasted sliced almonds (optional)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup white or rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar (I sometimes use 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup splenda)
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
pepper to taste
green onions, finely sliced (optional)
rotisserie chicken, cooled and shredded

1-Open the ramen noodles, set the seasoning packets aside. Put the noodles in a bag and crush them.
2-In a bowl whisk together the oil, vinegar, sugar, onion powder, ginger, pepper and both flavoring packets from the noodles until everything is dissolved.
3-Mix together the slaw mix, cabbage, crushed noodles, almonds and green onions (if using) and shredded chicken in a large bowl.
4-Pour the dressing over the top and toss to coat.
5-Refrigerate 4-6 hours to let the flavors blend (we never make it that long!) Stir again before serving.