Vietnamese Chicken Salad

A bowl of shredded chicken salad with sliced cucumbers, carrots, red onions, peanuts, lime wedges, and fresh mint, with a bowl of dressing and serving utensils nearby.

5 from 1 vote

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

🥗🥕🥒 Loaded with FRESH flavor, crunchy veggies, tender chicken, and a simple yet flavorful lime and chili dressing! Bright flavor galore in this healthy, quick, and easy salad that eats like a main course and keeps you full and satisfied thank to it being high protein and high fiber.

Serves approximately 2-3 as a main course, and 4 as a side salad. Easy to scale up or down based on your needs.

Prep Time10

Course: 30-Minute Meals, Dinner, lunch, Salad, Sides, Salads & Vegetables

Cuisine: Asian

Diet: Gluten Free

Keyword: Vietnamese chicken cabbage salad, Vietnamese chicken salad, Vietnamese salad with chicken

Servings:

Calories: 401cal

Equipment

Large Bowl
Medium Bowl

Ingredients

Salad

2 cups cooked chicken breast shredded or cubed (use leftover chicken, rotisserie chicken, or poach chicken breasts quickly)
4 cups finely shredded green cabbage (use a large bag of coleslaw mix to save time; ok to sub with some red cabbage along with the green)
1 large English cucumber diced small (regular cucumber may be substituted; peel or seed it as desired)
1 large carrot peeled; julienned or shredded (use pre-shredded carrots to save time, about 3/4 cup or as desired)
1 small red onion thinly sliced (run under cold water and wring out in paper towels to remove some of the ‘bite’ if desired)
½ cup fresh mint leaves torn or roughly chopped (or about 1/4 cup finely minced mint)
½ cup fresh cilantro torn (loosely packed; or about 1/4 cup finely minced cilantro)
½ cup fresh basil leaves optional (torn or roughly chopped (or about 1/4 cup finely minced basil)

Vinaigrette

3 tablespoons lime juice freshly squeezed (about 1–2 limes)
2-3 tablespoons neutral vegetable oil grapeseed, canola, or similar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce or to taste
1-3 teaspoons granulated sugar or to taste (start with 1 tsp and work up as desired)
½ teaspoon garlic powder (or 1 garlic clove, finely minced)
½ teaspoon salt or more to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper or to taste

Garnishes

¼ cup roasted peanuts roughly chopped (I use salted peanuts)
2 tablespoons crispy fried onions optional and to taste
fresh red chili thinly sliced; optional and to taste for heat (or red chili flakes, to taste)

Instructions

Salad: To a large bowl, add all the salad ingredients and toss to combine.
Tip - You can easily add more/less of a certain ingredient based on what you have on hand and your preferences. Additional vegetables such as pea pods, sugar snap peas, bok choy, shelled and cooked edamame, radishes, etc. may be added.
Vinaigrette: To a medium bowl or mason jar with a lid, add all of the ingredients, whisk or seal and shake the jar, taste and check for flavor balance.
Flavor Tips - Play with the ingredients and ratios until you get the flavor you like. If you want it more acidic without being more limey, a splash of rice vinegar is great. If it tastes at all flat or boring, it likely needs more salt. If you want additional sweetness, either add additional sugar and/or sweet chili sauce. More spiciness, add dried chili flakes, sambal olek, or a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Evenly drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and toss to combine.
Garnishes: Evenly sprinkle with the peanuts, optional crispy fried onions, and optional chiles for heat, and serve.

Notes

Storage: As salads go, even after this one is dressed it still retains a decent amount of crispiness and crunch thanks to the cabbage. Therefore, leftover salad will keep airtight in the fridge for 2-3 days, noting that it will get softer as time passes. But it still makes for a fine meal prep option for work lunches. The salt in the vinaigrette will cause the veggies to release water so it may be 'soupier' as time passes.

Nutrition