Asian Almond Ramen Salad

Salads for summer . . . Tastes & Treasures cookbook is filled with great salads. Here is another one to try with the ever-popular Ramen noodles.

Asian Almond Ramen Salad
Ingredients Dressing:
3 tablespoons rice vinegar or cider vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce
¼ cup canola oil
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
½ teaspoon honey
½ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
Ingredients Salad:

1 package (3 ounces) ramen noodles, any flavor
½ cup snow peas (2 ounces), sliced lengthwise into thin strips
½ cup shredded carrots
1 scallion, chopped
1 can (8 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained and chopped
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges in juice, drained
¼ cup sliced almonds
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Directions:
To make the dressing, whisk all the ingredients in a medium serving bowl until blended.


For the salad, discard the ramen seasoning packet. Crush the ramen in the bag into very small pieces with a heavy skillet or your hands. Add them to the bowl with the dressing and toss to coat. Let the ramen stand at room temperature, stirring now and then, until the liquid is mostly absorbed, about 45 minutes.


Gently fold in the snow peas, carrots, scallion, and water chestnuts. Fold in the oranges and then scatter on the almonds and sesame seeds. Serve at room temperature or refrigerate for up to 2 days and serve cold.


TIP:You can replace the dressing with store-bought light sesame-ginger dressing.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Mary Parker shared her delicious recipe with us. She brought it to the Historical League meeting Monday, March 7 and it was almost gone by the time I could photograph it. Yummm.

Love the way Mary cooks. We can all benefit from this method.

I just sort of threw it together ...

bag of baby greens into a bowl (I don't particularly like spring mix)
¼ head Napa cabbage chopped
celery
green onion
cucumber
1 breast roasted chicken that I bought - chopped up
1 bag of candied ginger - chopped
Girard's Chinese Chicken Salad dressing

I put the chopped-up chicken in a tupper-deal with the chopped-up candied ginger & a little salad dressing, so the chicken would stay moist. Snow peas &/or mandarin oranges can be used & sometimes I put in bean sprouts, but they can be hard to eat.

Then I threw on slivered almonds & sesame seeds that I browned in my toaster oven. I forgot the edamame I was going to use, too. And that's it. I was thinking about using chow mein noodles . . .