My wife made a really delicious Asian salad with cabbage the other night. You'll see a glimpse of it in my next post about a sticky grilled chicken with honey, garlic, soy sauce, and lime. I asked her, "How did you make this vinaigrette? It's really good!"
She said, "I didn't. It's in a bottle."
Ha! How do you like that? It's just a simple sesame dressing by Kraft. I had never had it before and it's really tasty. So I decided to make my simple side salads a little more exciting. The one pictured above was just thrown together on the fly. It was so good that I decided to make it a gain a night or two later.
I tried to make it a little fancy for you guys. So I thinly julienned some cucumber, carrots, and red bell peppers. I even sliced the cherry tomatoes and green onions thinly to keep the theme going. But the key here is cilantro. If you fall on the "Like Cilantro" side of the debate, it is a great way to brighten up a salad.
In this case it adds a little more Asian flair to my simple side salad of mixed spring greens. Then the cucumber and green onions really bring it together. I like to add a little touch of Thai chili paste too. Lime juice wouldn't be a bad idea either. But it's that bottled sesame dressing that is the real star.
Also, one little hint on salad dressing: use less than you did as a kid. Like a lot less. If your salad is "over-dressed" it will be really wet & heavy. And you likely will negate any of the good effects that eating those vegetables could have by adding a bunch of calories from a salad dressing.
The one thing that was missing was some chopped peanuts. (And it turns out we had them all along! I just saw them in the pantry. Oops.)
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