Asian Kale Salad with Chickenand peanut dressing / celery / Asian pears
Asian pears and celery add a sweet and crunchy bite to this delightfully balanced kale salad with seared chicken. This meal was last featured in 2018.
Smarts: Dressing the kale and letting it rest in the fridge ahead of time allows the kale to soften for the perfect salad texture.
Ingredients
- Celery - 4 ribs, thinly sliced
- Chicken breasts, boneless and skinless - 1 lb, sliced into strips (sub chicken thighs)
- Kale, baby - 10 oz (sub 1 bunch kale, chopped, for 4 servings)
- Pears, Asian - 2, julienned or sliced (sub any pears)
- Mint, fresh - 8 leaves, thinly sliced
- Oil, cooking - 2 Tbsp
- Peanuts - 1/2 cup
- Ginger, fresh - 1 inch, grated
- Peanut butter - 1/4 cup (creamy is preferred, but crunchy will also work)
- Soy sauce, low-sodium - 3 Tbsp
- Vinegar, rice - 2 Tbsp
- Honey - 2 Tbsp
- Oil, cooking - 1 Tbsp
- Sriracha - 2 tsp (sub other hot sauce)
- Limes - 1, juice of
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Make dressing - Grate ginger. Soften peanut butter in the microwave for ~30 seconds. Mix with ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, oil (portion for dressing), Sriracha (or other hot sauce), and lime juice. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Celery - Slice celery. (Can be done up to 2 days ahead)
- Chicken - Cut chicken into strips. Tenderize with a fork and season with some salt and pepper. (Can be done 1 day ahead)
- Dress kale - Dress kale with half of the dressing. Cover and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes to let the kale tenderize / soften.
- Pears / Mint - Prep as directed.
Make
- Heat a skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat. Add oil (portion for salad) and then add chicken to heated oil.
- Sear chicken on each side until cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes total.
- Toss dressed kale with celery, pear, mint, and peanuts. Portion out the salad. Top with chicken slices and drizzle remainder of the dressing over top. Enjoy!
Nutrition Facts
Reviews
This meal has 40 reviews
This was SO good. My kids loved it and actually ate some of the kale, which I was surprised by. Definitely going in our favourites!
Definitely don't dress the kale if it is baby kale. It was so super soggy after the 20 minutes! Opps. Great flavor besides that!
This was so delicious! And filling! The dressing was perfect. Added cashews with the peanuts. Will make this again definitely.
Replaced pears with kiwi because they were on sale. Marinated tofu in dressing first and always recommend doing this for tofu salads!
really yummy. used regular pears and mixed greens. Also used cashew butter instead of sunflower butter. should either double the chicken or reduce the salad components, since the kids just ate the chicken, but they did so happily.
Not usually a big salad fan.... But I found myself scrambling for more! Cooksmarts knows how to make some yummy peanut sauces! Definitely making again!