The Most Epic Chinese Chicken Salad
Five things I’m currently very happy about:
Mid-afternoon coffee dates with new friends to drink matcha lattes and eat fancy quiches.
Celebrating my own little shelter pup, Walt, on #NationalAdoptaShelterPet Day with just a little extra love and reminiscing on our love at first sight moment.
Clearing out like a third of the weeds currently plaguing my front yard, which is a big accomplishment considering I hate yardwork. Literally hate it.
Thankful that my husband randomly cracked the window above our sink before leaving for work yesterday, & that I was able to break into our own house through said window opposed to being locked out.
CRAFTING THE MOST EPIC, THE MOST DELICIOUS CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD!
So I guess the most important thing to know here is I f*cking love Chinese Chicken Salad. Somewhere in my young chilldhood, I was introduced to Chinese chicken salad & it transformed me into a connoisseur. Don’t know when, don’t remember quite where, but one bite of the stuff spurred a period of time when I was uninterested in going out to dinner unless Chinese Chicken Salad was on the menu. I literally remember walking down the street in San Francisco with my parents looking for a place to have dinner, and demanding that wherever we land must have Chinese Chicken Salad on the menu.
I mean, what’s not to love about a Chinese Chicken Salad? It’s the most perfect Americanized version of foreign cuisine. Ice cold lettuce, crispy chicken, crunchy wonton strips, & an abundance of fresh veggies - bell peppers, green onions, red onion, mandarin oranges. Like literally I can sing the praises of this salad all the live long day, but the true shining star of any good Chinese chicken salad is a solid dressing. Can’t be too salty, needs to be a little sweet, can’t be too watery, & needs to have a kind of syrupy consistency so that it coats all that’s going on in the salad. & truly nothing is more disappointing than when you order a Chinese Chicken Salad, you’re so excited to dig in, and the dressing is a total let down. Even as a kid, I would give restaurants a yay or nay based on if they had satisfactory dressing options. For this reason - I can confirm that Souplantation, Mimi’s Cafe, & Applebee’s all have fire Chinese Chicken Salads. My love for this one meal runs so deep that event my mom started to make me Chinese Chicken Salads at home. She never did quite master the dressing, but my adolescent self loved her for trying.
To this day, my heart lies with the Chinese Chicken Salad from the Cheesecake Factory. It is the holy grail of Chinese Chicken Salads, and whenever Jordan & I are being indecisive about the evening’s dinner plans I always “joke” that we could always just go to the Cheesecake Factory. We have yet to ever go together, and he has yet to watch me devour the Chinese Chicken Salad that brings me so much joy. But every time me and my mom are out, and there’s a Cheesecake Factory nearby, lord knows that’s where we’re having lunch.
I think I’ve joked so much recently about going to Cheesecake Factory that I’ve been hardcore craving this salad. So last night, on my evening home alone, I treated myself to my version of the Most Epic Chinese Chicken Salad. Putting together the salad of the dreams that didn’t skimp on the details. A delcious dressing, panko crusted chicken, and freshly fried wontons - my version had it all.
& then there was the dressing. If I was going to tackle my most favorite meal of all time, I need to have the perfect dressing. No exaggeration, I trolled Pinterest for a solid 40 minutes, looked at probably 10 dressing recipes, saw the trends, took notes on what I thought would be good, and whipped up the most wonderful homemade dressing delight that at one point I was literally dunking chicken into. Shameful - maybe. But I just couldn’t help myself. This creamy & sweet little number that gets a salty kick from soy sauce alone was truly magnificent. I kept it true to my taste preferences and used very little oil - amping up the vinegar & mayo to get just the right texture & flavor.
For the Dressing
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced (the stuff you can buy in a tube at the store is totally great)
1/4 c. sesame oil
1/4 c. mayo
2 tbsp canola oil
Salt & pepper
For the salad
2 c. canola oil
3-4 wonton wrappers, cut into strips (halve the wonton wrappers and then slice them about 1/2 inch thick)
2 large chicken breasts
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. panko breadcrumbs
6 c. crunchy salad mix (a mix of kale, cabbage, & broccoli slaw is ideal, and sliced napa cabbage is a great alternative)
1 can of mandarin oranges, drained
1/4 of a red onion, sliced as a thinly as possible (use a mandolin)
1 red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
3 scallions, thinly sliced
Sesame seeds (for garnish)
Start by making your dressing. Use a 12 ounce mason jar, and add in the sugar, soy, vinegar and ginger. Shake vigorously until all the sugar has been dissolved in the liquid. Once the sugar has been mixed in, add in the mayo and oils, and continue to shake until these ingredients have become emulsified into the dressing. Set the mason jar in the fridge, and let it chill until you’re ready to eat.
Now time to for the cooking portion of the salad. Start by placing a large skillet over medium-high heat, one you’re ok to use for frying, and add in 1 cup of the canola oil. Let it heat up for 8 minutes. To make it sure it’s hot enough for frying, add ONE of your wonton strips to the oil. If the oil bubbles right away, you’re ready to go. If it doesn’t, let it continue to heat up for 2 minutes. Once the oil is good to go, add in about 6-8 wonton strips at a time, watching the wonton wrappers carefully to make sure they don’t burn. You literally will only need them to cook like 15 seconds per side to get that nice golden brown color. Remove from the skillet once browned and place the wonton wrappers on a paper towel lined plate (this will help absorb any extra oil). Repeat this process of small batch frying until all of the wonton strips are fried up. Turn off the heat.
Now time for the chicken. Place each chicken breast between two pieces of saran wrap. Pound the shit out of it with a meat tenderizer or another skillet until the thickness of the chicken breast is reduced by half.
The next step is to get out 3 shallow dishes. Place the flour in one (season the flour with a tablespoon of bother salt and pepper), the panko in another, and beat the 2 eggs in the remaining dish. You’ll coat each chicken breast in this order
dunking in the flour (getting both sides coated)
dunking in the egg (getting both sides coated)
pressing firmly in the panko so the breadcrumbs cover the entire piece of chicken
Set your prepped and breaded chicken pieces back on the cutting board. Next, crank the oven to 350 and line a baking pan with foil.
Place the remaining 1 cup of oil in the skillet used to fry the wontons (go ahead and use that frying oil), crank the heat back up to medium-high, and let the oil heat up for about 8 minutes. Once the oil is hot, place the chicken breasts in the oil one at a time. Let them cook 3-4 minutes on each side, or until they’re golden brown on each side. If you’re oil is cooking them to almost burnt in this cook time, reduce the heat to medium. Bottom line is watch the chicken to avoid burning, and remove once is has a dark golden brown color. Place the fried chicken breasts on the baking sheet, and then bake them in the oven for an additional 20 minutes to finish cooking.
While the chicken finishes cooking, prepare your salads. This is a prepare each individual salad in personalized bowls situation, and you can customize it to your liking. A placed a large handful of lettuce in the base of my bowl, then topped it with about 8 orange slices, a few onion slices, and few bell pepper slices, and a healthy pinch of the wonton strips (they’re the piece de resistance).
The next step is to remove the chicken from the oven once the cook-time is up, letting it cook for about 2 minutes. Slice it up, and then place about 1/2 of the sliced chicken breast on top of your salad. Finish it with a a sprinkle of scallions, sesame seeds, and a healthy drizzle of your dressing. It’s good to go.
Tip: Pile all of your leftovers (except for the dressing & wonton strips) in a large tuperware container to make a big salad for leftovers. You’ll just need to add dressing and wonton strips. It’s great for dinner or lunch the next two days, and it allowed me to share a little with Jordo so he could also experience this Chinese Chicken Salad perfection.
