A Good Shredded Salad Recipe
One of the things I love about having a work studio is our location. It means that most days, at one point or another, I find myself standing in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. This is a shredded salad inspired by the neighborhood - lots of cabbage and scallions, tossed with soy sauce, honey, and cilantro, and amount of crunch toasted peanuts, and celery.
One of the things I love about having a work studio is our location. It means most days, at one point or another, I find myself standing in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. It's a neighborhood in transition spanning a handful of steeply sloping blocks east to west, from the dragon gate at Bush Street north to Broadway. There's a new subway stop scheduled to open in the coming years, and a good number of cranes reaching skyward to facilitate the construction of new buildings. My hope was that we'd have a Chinatown dispatch ready to follow our summer one, but here it is, summer gone, and it's not quite ready. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few photos, and this beauty of a salad inspired by the much-loved, shredded cabbage composition found on a good number of menus in the the area surrounding Grant Avenue - green layered on green layered on green. It is all about the play between shredded ingredients like cabbage and scallions, and crunch from ingredients like cabbage, and peanuts, and celery.
A couple of side notes - This salad works nicely with shredded green cabbage or purple. Just be sure to do a nice, fine shred. Also, if sprouts are hard to come by for you, substitute so chopped herbs - I did a nice version with basil the other night.
I'm off on a trip for the this week - hoping to have pics and inspiration to share when I return. -h
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A Good Shredded Salad
2 teaspoons sunflower oil
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons runny honey
fine grain sea salt, to taste
one small bunch of cilantro (leaves and stems), chopped
1/2 cup peanuts, toasted
1 bunch of scallions, shredded
2 cups finely shredded cabbage
1/2 cup mung bean sprouts
1/2 cup broccoli or pea sprouts
3 large stalks celery, thinly sliced on diagonal
2 tablespoons shoyu or soy sauce
1 tablespoon (brown) rice vinegar
toasted sesame seeds, black or white
In a medium bowl, stir together the sunflower oil, sesame oil, 1 tablespoon of the honey, and a generous pinch of sea salt. Add the cilantro, peanuts, and scallions. Stir well to combine. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine the cabbage, mung bean sprouts, broccoli or pea sprouts, and celery.
In another bowl, stir together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and remaining 2 teaspoons of honey. Stir to combine, pour over the vegetables, and toss to coat. Add half the cilantro-peanut mixture, toss again, and transfer to a serving dish. Top with the remaining cilantro relish and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
Serves 4.
Prep time: 10 minutes
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Comments
That looks delicious! Beautiful pictures!
Hey Heidi, thanks for the inspiration not only with your recipes, but also with your photography. It’s inspired me a lot to start eating healthy and my life has changed because of it. You’re seriously one of my online mentors right now (have been for ages!). In fact it’s even convinced me to start making a journal of my own food. Just wish my photos could be as nice as yours though 🙂
For those asking about shredding the onions, not sure if this will help, but, I cut the onions into about 2″ pieces and put them into my VitaMix…add enough water to float the onions off the blade…before you turn on the mixer, turn it to “High”…I gave it a 1-second pulse, a few times, then just drained them. I shredded my cabbage in the same manner (just under 2” slices) and it did the trick great! The salad was wonderful, I want to try it with the tofu or egg as a few of you have mentioned…
I just finished off a bowl of this for lunch, with a side of your green curry porridge. So delicious! My grocery was having a lame moment and was missing many of the ingredients I needed for the dressing, so I just used a sesame ginger dressing I had on hand – probably not as great as this one, but the salad was still fantastic. Thanks for yet another recipe to include in my regular rotation!
Now why is a shredded salad so much better than a regular salad? I think the smaller slices create more surface area to cling to whatever delicious dressing it is paired with. Fun how just changing the way you cut something can change the culinary experience!
Yet another incredible recipe Heidi! I love your blog, have your cookbooks and love your Quitokeeto site as well! I just had to write about the incredible plate that you used with this shredded salad recipe, like you, I love and collect beautiful serveware, antique, japanese, artisan … you name it … I looked for an email contact address for you, however it may well be easier to inquire here, and if you are able and willing to share with me anything about this dish, the maker, any marks, the time period, I would certainly appreciate it, I may not be able to find one which is identical, however I would love to search! Thank you so much for all that you do, and so beautifully!
This looks awesome. Would be a perfect salad for a potluck or add a protein to it for an entree salad.
Love, love, love everything about this!
I always Love your beautiful stories, stunning photographs and mouthwatering creative recipes! Thanks for sharing Great recipe ideas.
Now, this is the kind of salad I like!
This salad looks so refreshing and delicious. I used to walk through Chinatown everyday on my way to and from work. The place is still such a mystery to me, so many nooks and crannies—can’t wait to see and hear more from you!
Lovely post as usual!
I work as a family cook, and everytime u post me salads I gather it buy the right ingredients and let the family taste it and boy how they love every single salads I served them, so THANK YOU very much Miss Heidi, looking forward for more salad recipe you have in mind, thanks again.
This has me chuckling! With a smile in the 70s my mom made a very Americana version of this “Cabbage Crunch” which I then shared with my girls! Everyone! Loved the texture of the ramen noodles back then! I have since changed this as my pallet has advanced! So,
Would like to grow my own sprouts and am looking for a ceramic stacking assembly.
Have you seen one?
Ps: on your mailing for your dispatch and it seems I missed the first one?
so ready to try this lovely salad, but how do you shred scallions?
Love shredded cabbage salads, particularly of the Asian variety!
Sometimes I add a one-egg omelette into the mix; you whisk the egg with a bit of soy sauce and mirin, make it thin, then flip it, roll it tightly and chop it horizontally into ribbons.
A nice way to add protein, though cubed baked sesame soy tofu is another good alternative.
I love the layers of flavor and greens in this salad. A great idea to stream mung bean sprouts throughout too. Enjoy your trip, always look forward to the pictures that follow. 🙂
Cabbage and cilantro are one of my favorite flavor combinations. I love everything about this salad.
Yum!! LOOOOONGTime Lurker here, been following you 3 years. Tonight, with your wonderful recipe here, I am “baptising” a kick-a$$ chef’s knife from a San Francisco master knifemaker Davie Boye of “Francine Etched Knives”! I am about to shred the cabbage and basil (and adding cilantro) into delicate whispers of filaments, something I have long dreamed of and never been able to achieve, not owning a mandarin. I would love to know: do you only use Napa cabbage for this, because I don’t see any mention of a brief parboiling nor any marination to soften it. I’ve found often that “regular” green or purple cabbages remain too tough, even with 3-hrs marination in a nice acidic dressing. Either way, thank you for a super bright, tantalizing, fresh recipe. Here’s to great kitchen knives!!
HS: Hi CJ – I simply use cabbage here – not even Nappa cabbage. It’s fine w/o blanching as long as your cuts are thin and feathery. Enjoy!
This looks amazing! Particularly love the flavours you use for the dressing – can’t wait to give this a try after grocery day 🙂
Full of flavor, and textures, what can be better!
This looks delicious! Do you think I could sub lime juice for the rice vinegar?
HS: I suspect it could be nice. Perhaps start with a bit less if you go that route, and make it to taste.
WIth a title like that how can one not make this salad. Happy Nesting.
This post brings back memories of my last visit to San Fran’s Chinatown – the sights and smells are amazing. This salad looks so delicate and scrumptious!
That area of San Francisco sounds like an exciting place to visit. The menu items look tast and cheap.
This looks wonderful, and I will be making it. Question, though… how do you shred scallions? Or can I just slice them as thinly as possible>
This is an INSANE salad! I made it to pack for lunches tomorrow but we ended up eating it for a late dinner. I subbed sui choy for cabbage and sliced, blanched green beans for mung bean sprouts, and I added cubed tofu. YUM!
It’s so good that we’ve decided to serve it for a dinner with friends on Monday and would like to pair it with one or two other salads, perhaps a grain one – quinoa or barley or…any suggestions, Heidi or other readers?
HS: Love hearing it Jul! I like the addition of tofu, or tofu salad on the side. It could also be good paired with a soba noodle option, or on top of soba. Its pretty flexible, I imagine mixed into a portion of quinoa could be good too. Have a great Monday with your friends!
Lovely, simple salad that screams healthy, i love it ! What I’m particularly fond of is the platter, so charming ! Where could I find that or is it an heirloom maybe..passed down from generations..?
This salad is right up my alley! I’m tempted to try it with Napa cabbage…I’ve been on a total Napa kick lately.
Lovely recipe–I have really been enjoying shredded salads lately. They just seem so much more substantial and delicious!
Can’t wait for that Chinatown dispatch! (Your summer one was such a delight.) Enjoy your trip, wherever you find yourself gallivanting, and I’ll see if a little of this green on green doesn’t get me through my deadlines. Thanks!
This salad sounds like a dream. I’m picking up our CSA share today, and I’m crossing my fingers for cabbage! (
Your salads are so distinctly “you” I feel I could pick them out of a blog line-up, and this wonderful one is no exception! I am intrigued by the use of sunflower oil, have never used it but do enjoy walnut oil, sesame oil and avocado oil for the occasional treat in my salads. Also we have a wonderful sprout man at our Friday Venice Farmer’s Market and Wednesday Santa Monica Farmer’s Market who sells every kind of sprout you can imagine. Fabulous!
I still have great memories of a week visiting San Francisco and my hotel was in Chinatown. I would start my morning walking and discovering their food and culture. What a great place to have a studio.
So much good stuff in here. This salad looks lovely!
Double yum! I’ve enjoyed similar versions in the past. Looking forward to giving this a whirl. Thank you.
Lovely images and of course it looks delicious, as always!
So many lovely photos, and that salad! Wow! Love the play between the different shares of green, the Asian-dressing and the peanuts, mmmm 🙂 x
I visited San Francisco a couple of years ago, and reading your post just took me back to my walks through the city, and also Chinatown….what a nice memory!
I really like your salad, I think it goes nicely with a whole bunch of meals. Amazing plate, by the way!
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