March 15, 2009 | One Dish Meals, Salads

I made a great dinner salad last night entirely inspired by what I had on hand in my pantry and refrigerator (rice noodles, Chinese cabbage, purple cabbage, lettuce) and leftover from another dinner event I had done earlier in the week (sliced radishes, red pepper, toasted almonds, sliced green onions, dressing, and cooked chicken breast). The resulting Chinese Chicken Salad is really tasty and satisfying. I had gotten a lot of Chinese cabbage from the farm during the winter distribution and thankfully it lasts a long time in the refrigerator. I simply sliced it into thin ribbons…

…and also sliced some romaine lettuce thinly to expand the salad and add a bit more green.

Next I sliced some purple cabbage into thin ribbons…

…along with some red peppers…

…and some green onions.

I had radishes left over from my dinner event on Thursday and they were already sliced…

…but I decided to cut them into slivers to be uniform like the other ingredients in the salad.

Rice noodles can be soaked in warm warm to create a texture similar to angel hair pasta, but a fun way to cook them is to put them a few at a time into hot oil and watch them quickly puff up.

I tossed together all of the prepped vegetables and tossed them with a simple ginger dressing…

…then topped the salad with some toasted sliced almonds…

…and the fried rice noodles.

Here’s the recipe for the dressing – just mix everything together well in a covered container and toss with your salad.

Ginger Honey Dressing

1/2 cup Canola oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, or more to taste
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
1 tablespoon honey
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper, to taste