How To Make the Salad Dressing

I experimented with few different dressings and ultimately settled on this one, which I think is just the right balance of soy sauce, rice vinegar (or rice wine vinegar; they’re the same), ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. Whisk everything together, taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking, then toss with the salad. The dressing stored on its own will also keep for at least a week or longer.

Make-Ahead Tips

If you’d like to make this salad ahead for a party or to take for lunch, cook the chicken and assemble all the salad ingredients in a storage container, except for the chow mein noodles. Combine the ingredients for the salad dressing in a separate jam jar. Store everything in the fridge until ready to serve. Just before serving, shake the jam jar to combine the dressing, then toss with the salad. Top with chow mein noodles and serve. Do you have a favorite Chinese chicken salad dressing? Please let us know about it in the comments.

More Easy Salad Recipes for Parties and Lunches!

Lentil Salad with Summer Vegetables Greek Pasta Salad Curried Chicken Salad with Mango Chinese Smashed Cucumber Chicken Salad Pasta and Bean Picnic Salad

The dish began to show up frequently on American menus in the mid-1900s. Wolfgang Puck sometimes gets the credit for the dish because he put something similar on the menu at his famous restaurant Chinois in the 1980s, but versions of salads with the name, or other names with Asian descriptors, can be found dating back to the 1930s.

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, sliced into short strips Kosher salt 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil 1 tablespoon canola or peanut oil 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 head iceberg lettuce or Napa cabbage, thinly sliced 1/2 sweet pepper bell pepper, thinly sliced 3 to 4 scallions, sliced 1 carrot, julienned 1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves, chopped 1/2 cup roasted peanuts Chow mein noodles, to taste

For the dressing:

1 tablespoon soy sauce (use gluten-free soy sauce for gluten-free option) 2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar 1 teaspoon mustard powder 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger 1 clove garlic, minced 1/2 teaspoon chili pepper flakes 2 teaspoons sugar 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil 1/4 cup peanut or canola oil

Pat dry the chicken strips, sprinkle them with a little salt, and add them to the pan. Stir-fry the chicken over high heat until cooked through, 3 to 6 minutes depending on how hot your burner gets. Remove and set aside to cool.