Chopped Miso Salad Recipe
A favorite chopped salad recipe - fresh and crunchy with toasted, plenty of pan-fried shallots, chives, cabbage, red onions, and tossed with a simple miso dressing.
Sharpen your knives - this salad requires some chopping. You chop chives, cabbage, and red onions. You slice tofu and shallot after shallot. I'm inclined to argue it is well worth the effort. I saw a Cobb Salad at a cafe a month or so back, each ingredient in its own little colorful quadrant, and thought, hey, I'd like that - but re-mixed with ingredients from my own kitchen and pantry. The resulting salad is fresh and crunchy with deep, toasty, nuttiness from the almonds and plenty of depth from a generous helping of "just-this-side-of-burnt" pan-fried shallots. I tossed everything together with a simple miso dressing - one that I sometimes like to drizzle over baked tofu. In fact I threw in some of that as well. This salad is perfect for a hot day, and the good news is that you can do much of the prep in advance.
The dressing you can make a day or two ahead of time - any extra is great drizzled over baked tofu, brown rice bowls, grilled asparagus, lots of things. Toasted nuts can be done in advance, same goes for chopping the chives, as well as the cooking of the shallots - you want them at room temperature.
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Chopped Miso Salad Recipe
I used Westbrae Natural Organic Mellow Brown Rice Miso for the dressing. If you like the flavor of sesame oil - go ahead and add it to your dressing in fact you can go ahead and add it "to taste" - although sometimes I like to go a bit more neutral and skip rhe sesame oil altogether. I also had two small heads of little gem lettuce so I threw them in here as well. You can use any kind of extra-firm tofu you like here - this salad works well with baked tofu or plain. Tofu cooked in a skillet for a few minutes to take on some color is great - I cheated a bit and used Soy Deli baked tofu (savory) for the salad pictured up above.
1 1/2 cups shallots, skinned and thinly sliced
splash of extra-virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons miso
1/2 teaspoon powdered mustard (or a bit of whatever mustard you have around)
2 tablespoons brown sugar (or honey or agave)
1/4 cup (brown) rice vinegar
1/3 cup mild flavored extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon pure toasted sesame oil (optional)
1/2 of a medium-large cabbage
1 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1/2 medium red onion, sliced
3/4 cup chives, minced
8 ounces extra-firm tofu (see headnotes), room temperature
Stir together the shallots, splash of olive oil and big pinch of salt In a large skillet over medium heat. Stir every few minutes, you want the shallots to slowly brown over about 15 minutes. Let them get dark, dark brown (but not burn). if needed turn down the heat. Remove them from the skillet and onto a paper towel to cool in a single layer. they should crisp up a bit.
Make the dressing by whisking the miso, mustard, and brown sugar together. Now whisk in the rice vinegar and keep whisking until it's smooth. Gradually whisk in the olive oil, and then the sesame oil. Two pinches of fine grain salt. Taste and make any adjustments if needed.
Cut the cabbage into two quarters and cut out the core. Using a knife shred each quarter into whisper thin slices. The key here is bite-sized and thin. If any pieces look like they might be awkwardly long, cut those in half.
Gently toss the cabbage, shallots, almonds, red onion, chives and tofu in a large mixing/salad bowl. Add a generous drizzle of the miso dressing and toss again - until the dressing is evenly distributed. Add more a bit at a time if needed, until the salad is dressed to your liking.
Serves 3 - 4 as a main dish, 6 - 8 as a side.
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Seriously delicious. Just polished off a bowl of it for dinner (made it with fake chicken strips instead of tofu, and left out the red onions).
I suppose this could be considered slightly off-topic, but, I have a good Japanese-American friend who makes fun of my pronuciation of miso. I say it “me-zow” (rhymes with “bow”), and I guess it’s closer to “me-so”, but my tongue refuses to say it that way….
It looks great. Thank you !
I love how you make even cut vege’s look amazing. You so talented, and inspiring. Keep up the great work!
What a great idea! Sort of an Asian coleslaw, for people who don’t like coleslaw. There’s a sushi place I love that has the best salad dressing–I think their secret ingredient must be miso!
This looks yummy; I like the idea that you can do a lot of this in advance.
What type of miso you use for the dressing? White, red or black? It looks fabulous.
YUM! Love a chopped salad. The miso dressing looks great for sandwiches too. Thanks 🙂
YUM! Love a chopped salad. The miso dressing looks great for sandwiches too. Thanks 🙂
I made this last night for a small dinner with friends, and it was a hit. Really delicious, complex flavors and worked beautifully as a side with roasted salmon fillets. Thank you for another terrific recipe.
I have a friend who just does the almonds and raw, shredded cabbage with a simple dressing of lemon, salt and olive oil. It’s better than it sounds and pound for pound the crunchiest salad on Earth.
http://www.teaandfood.blogspot.com
Chop, chop, chop until you make copped miso salad.
http://www.foodista.com
This is one of my favorites. Keep the great recipes coming.
I have just put shallots, miso and extra firm tofu on my shopping list for tomorrow. Asparagus has just started appearing in our markets down here and this is the perfect vehichle for it in my opinion. Why is it, I wonder, that asparagus, strawberries and new potatoes always seem to taste better when they are trribly expensive at the start of their season?
Yum yum! I just love miso slaw…I like to add arame or wakame to mine. I never thought of using shallots with a more Japanese-Asian combination though. I’ll have to try it! Thanks 🙂
Ever since I discovered this site,quite by accident, I have loved everything I’ve made and shared with others. I am not a vegetarian by any means but the this miso salad was the bomb and a real hit amongst my kids 14 & 16. Thank you very much!
This is my idea of the perfect lunch!!
tomorrow I try it out!
That would be wonderful to enjoy before the last hot days of summer leave us. Light and refreshing and a nice break from the green salad rut some of us get stuck in!
Thanks for this recipe! I’m always looking for new salad recipes, and I will definitely be trying this.
Stephanie: You can find miso at Japanese grocery stores, some other Asian grocery stores (our local Korean grocery stores usually have it), and at Whole Foods.
I am wondering whether peanuts would work with the flavor mix, and which other salad greens work well with this kind of thing.
Oh how I LOVE miso.
I think the composed salad presentation is fantastic.
I have a
Gingered Shiitake, Miso Soba Noodles with Seaweed and Nappa Slaw on my site, and I’m thinking a composed presentation would be FANTASTIC.
I’m going to try that and take a pix to repost it. Thanks for the inspiration!
Yum! Sounds like a very refreshing salad. We love miso soup, so I bet we would like the dressing as well. 🙂
Hi –
Beautiful as always, this is going to be dinner tonight.
Heidi, what kind/color of miso do you use for this dressing? I’ve never bought miso paste, only pre-made miso dressing from my local healthy food store, that I tart up a bit. What kind of miso do you recommend for soups?
Thanks for all the lovely food and photos, take care,
elis
Where do people find miso. Please don’t say “health food store.” I’m looking for something specific as in Whole Foods. Thanks.
I’ve done a chopped Mexican salad before. This is a great Asian take on chopped salad. I especially like the use of the baked tofu. The use of toasted shallots really puts this dish over.
I wonder, could you use chopped shiitake mushrooms or other Asian mushrooms? Would the miso dressing work with those?
That looks yummy Heidi! I’m all about big imrprovisational salads for these last few weeks of warm weather here in Seattle. Check out this Thai-style salad with watermelon and grilled tofu we made recently.
That looks devine Heidi! (except I can’t do onions so would leave those out).
Thanks for another great recipe!
The dressing and salad both look great. I think I’ll use this dressing on rice for my lunch.
Thanks!
I have been craving tofu lately and this sounds perfect. I love the flavor of “just this side of burnt” shallots. Mmm..
Speaking of lettuce, Heidi, how is your lettuce garden? 🙂
I’ve been wanting to branch out from just using miso in soup. This looks perfect, and will also be a great way to use up some leftover cabbage!
Looking forward to this recipe! The miso dressing sounds wonderful and so do the crispy shallots. If you are tired of all the chopping and want an easy, yet absolutely delicious substitute for the shallots try Lars Crispy Onions. They are by far the best crispy onions I have found.
http://www.woodstockfarmersmarket.com/lars-crispy-onions.aspx
I love miso dressing. I wish I was having this for lunch.
The chopped Miso Salad at California Pizza Kitchen is one of my favorite meals ever. Thanks so much for giving me a homemade alternative! :).
Looks wonderful…I love the color and texture variety.
That’s a nice way to use miso, as a dressing. The miso probably helps digest all that cabbage!
I adore miso and cabbage in salads. This sounds like the perfect one to try!
Holey smokes that looks good! Yum yum yum.
I bet this would be good with chicken as well.
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