Asian Noodles and Slaw

Spring is in the air! Easter is just around the corner. April the 12th to be exact. So, I have been thinking about brunch dishes to celebrate this joyous time of year.

One of our favorite salads to eat in the spring and summer is this Oriental Cabbage Slaw. Made this last night to go with salmon at a family birthday dinner. Years ago, my sis in law, Sheri, made some changes to the original recipe from A Pinch of Salt Lake cookbook. I made a few more, now its nearly perfect (in my humble opinion). This is a great salad for a buffet table, because it doesn't go limp, or have any ingredients that spoil easily (unless you add chicken to make it more of a main dish salad). It's a little different than the usual pasta salad, and yet different from most salads made with ramen noodles, because the noodles are cooked. In the next few weeks, I'll post some of our (brunch) family favorites.

Asian Noodles and Slaw

printable recipe

Salad:

4 packages chicken flavored ramen, spice packs reserved

1 medium size head cabbage, finely shredded

1 red pepper, thinly sliced

1 orange or yellow pepper, thinly sliced

4-5 cups broccoli, blanched and cut into small pieces

1 bunch green onions, chopped

Dressing:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 tablespoons sesame oil

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup cider vinegar

3 spice packets from ramen packages

2-4 tablespoons sugar - to taste

salt and ground pepper to taste

After salad and dressing are assembled, sprinkle generously with :

Mrs Dash- about 3 Tablespoons

toasted sesame seeds- about 1/4 cup

Cook ramen according to package directions, do not add spice packets. Do not over cook. Rinse with cold water, drain again. Place noodle in large bowl or container. Combine the chopped vegetables with the noodles.

Combine dressing ingredients, whisk or place in blender until mixed well. Taste the dressing, it should have a little bit of a sweet/sour taste. If it's not tart enough, add a little more vinegar, if too tart, add more sugar. Pour the dressing a little at a time over the salad ingredients, tossing as you add the dressing. There should be about 1/2 to 1/4 cup of the dressing leftover.

Sprinkle generously with Mrs. Dash and sesame seeds. After pouring into serving dish, sprinkle with a few more seeds and Mrs. Dash. Refrigerate until serving.

Tips:

-Add a couple of sliced chicken breasts to make this a main dish salad.

-Mrs. Dash is a combination of several spices, pepper, celery seed, onion, marjoram, thyme, coriander, cumin, orange peel, lemon juice powder to name a few. It really gives this salad a great flavor.

-I have found that buying sesame seeds in the oriental section of the grocery is much less expensive than the spice area. The bottles are much bigger, many times for about half the cost. - Don't over cook the ramen, it's easy to do, because the noodles are so thin. They really only take about a minute or two.

- I have tried lots of different brands of ramen noodles and Soba noodles in this recipe. For a while I used Soba noodles. They taste good, and have a more substantial texture, but have reverted back to using ramen noodles because they are easier to find in the grocery store, and less expensive. And no one seemed to appreciate the difference! I like the Sapporo Ichiban brand of ramen. If you use a brand like Top Ramen (ick), you may want to increase the amount of noodles to 5-6 packages, and use 3-4 spice packets. They tend to have less noodles per package than the Sapporo brand.

Sapporo Brand, found in the Asian/Oriental section of the grocery

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