Thai Crunch Salad with Peanut Dressing is a light and healthy salad recipe that's packed with craveable flavor and crunch!
“Restaurant quality delicious! My husband and I couldn’t stop eating it. So simple and the dressing was fabulous.”
Raise your hand if you’re craving something fresh, healthy, and NOT made entirely from butter and/or sugar?
Man I love the holidays but over the past few weeks I have eaten crazy amounts of sugar cookies, plenty of Puppy Chow and boatloads of bark. It’s been fun but right now all I want to do is eat a MASSIVE salad. The little boys and I were at my parent’s house yesterday where I made Lincoln a healthy snack of sliced apples and peanut butter…then sat down and chowed down on Lay’s potato chips. #WHY My point is, unhealthy habits beget unhealthy habits and this freight train needs to be stopped.
Thai Crunch Salad with Peanut Dressing is just the thing to do it!
Watch How to Make It
Crispy coleslaw mix is combined with green onions, red bell pepper, cilantro, peanuts, and chicken then tossed with an easy Thai Peanut Dressing that I had to double the amounts for in the final recipe because I spoon drank too much and didn’t have enough left to dress the salad with.
What can I say, self control is not one of my strengths.
This healthy salad recipe is super crunchy and filling, plus if you’re a fan of mason jar salads – these work beautifully! Scoop several Tablespoons of the dressing into the bottom of a 16oz mason jar then layer in coleslaw > red pepper > chicken > green onions > peanuts > cilantro. Pour onto a plate at lunchtime, and you’re set. Let’s do this!
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Pin ItHow to Make Thai Crunch Salad
Start by adding bagged coleslaw mix (green cabbage, red cabbage, and carrots,) chopped cilantro, peanuts, and green onions, plus red bell pepper cut into matchsticks, and shredded chicken breast into a large bowl. I poached my chicken breast for about 10 minutes before shredding, but you can cook it any way you like and/or use rotisserie chicken.
How to Make Peanut Dressing
To a mason jar or small bowl add peanut butter, honey, warm water, gluten-free Tamari, rice vinegar, lime juice, toasted sesame seeds, sesame oil, ground ginger, fresh garlic, salt, and pepper then shake or whisk to combine. Whew! Sounds like a lot of ingredients but I always have everything in the house.
Drizzle the dressing on top then toss well and scoop into two bowls with extra lime wedges for drizzling.
I hope you love this fresh and healthy, yet fun and filling salad – enjoy!
More Fork Busting Salad Recipes
- Healthy Chickpea Salad
- Italian Quinoa Salad
- Chicken Caesar Salad Pasta
- Big Mac Salad
- Jennifer Aniston Salad
- Italian Sub Salad
- Southwestern Chopped Salad
- Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups coleslaw mix, green cabbage, red cabbage, carrot mix
- 1/2 red pepper, sliced into thin matchsticks
- 1 chicken breast, cooked then shredded
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 3 Tablespoons peanuts, finely chopped
- 3 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
For the Thai Peanut Dressing:
- 4 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter
- 2 Tablespoons honey
- 2 Tablespoons hot water
- 1-1/2 Tablespoons gluten free reduced-sodium Tamari, or soy sauce if not GF
- 1 Tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1/2 lime, slice remaining 1/2 lime into wedges
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1/4 teaspoon heaping ground ginger
- 1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
- salt and pepper
Directions
- Add ingredients for Thai Peanut Dressing into bowl then whisk to combine. Taste then adjust lime juice for more acid, and/or add water to thin if necessary.
- Add remaining ingredients into a large bowl. Drizzle desired amount of dressing on top then toss well to combine. Scoop into bowls then serve with lime wedges.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are estimates only. Please read our full nutrition information disclaimer.
This was delicious. I added diced cucumber and air fried some strips of egg roll wrappers and crumbled them in because I wanted a different crunch. Perfect!
Yuuuum – love those additions, Kristie!
This is simple to make and simply delicious!!!
So glad you loved it, Kelli!!
You forgot the wontons that ate shown in the picture in the ingredients
This looks really good. Can you use shrimp in place of the chicken?
Of course!
Super tasty salad! I chopped up the cabbage and carrot because I didn’t have a coleslaw mix handy. Thanks for another winner Kristen!
Love this salad. I make it without chicken for work lunches (mostly because I’m lazy), and it is perfect. I had my 12 year old try a bite and he loved the dressing!
I had just finished an online workout and my body was screaming for some fuel when I saw this recipe pop up in my inbox. Miraculously I had everything I needed on hand from our other meals this week and it came together very fast! This will for sure go into my regular rotation. Thank you!
Oh my gosh, that is awesome!! I’m so glad you liked the recipe, Christy!
It’s rare for a salad to be described as “addictive” but this salad really is!
I’ve made this several times, most recently I was out of sesame oil and rice vinegar so I swapped in olive oil and red wine vinegar, and it was still awesome. Thank you for this recipe!
I’m obsessed with this dressing! I’ve made 3x in the last 3 days, along with the salad and it’s to die for! I’ve put the dressing over noodles, grilled salmon, and quinoa as well. The whole thing takes 15 minutes to make. Love. Love!!!
So thrilled to hear that, J!! Thanks so much for your feedback and recipe rating!
Loved this, easy and delicious. My kids loved it too!
Yum! Thanks! Monday nights dinner now planned. ?
This is GF, DF AND over the top with amazing flavors! Will make again and again!!!
Just made this for the first time last night to use up a bunch of leftover holiday weekend cabbage mix that I had on hand. Why did I wait so long?! Absolutely delicious and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE recipes where most of the ingredients I have on hand. Only had to buy a pepper and even then I easily could have subbed it for additional carrots or broccoli. Going on my weekly rotation of meals to make.