Breathing life into leftovers: Asian Salad

Last weekend Hubs and I headed to the grocery store.  They had pork roast on sale for $1.99/lb so I picked up a pack with 2 in it (about 3.5 lbs).  Fast forward a few days and I found it in the fridge on the bottom shelf.  I was weary about freezing it (a few days may be an understatement) so I roasted them both in the oven with some Montreal Steak Seasoning. We had it for supper with cauliflower and another side I don’t remember.

When Hubs and I were vacationing in Shipshewana, IN we ate a small coffee shop.  I can’t find a link for it, and I can’t remember the name.  I had an Asian chicken salad, which was so fantastic I drool thinking about it.

EDIT:  I found them.  It’s called Morton Street Coffee.

So I decided to try to recreate it.

I made a sweet asian dressing which was kind of morphed between a few recipes I found

Asian Salad (serves 4)

Dressing:
3/4 cup of oil (I used vegetable because I had it on hand.  I think olive would be too strong for this recipe)
3/8 cup of rice vinegar (I used seasoned because that’s what I have)
3/8 c sugar
1 Tbsp soy sauce ( I added this for that asian flavor and a lot of recipes called for salt so I thought this was a good addition)

Salad
1 head of Napa Cabbage (I cut mine into shreds)
1 cup shredded carrots (I like carrots, I only chopped mine because I was lazy)
1/4 cup of sliced almonds (or more if you like)
1/4 dried cranberries
1 cup of diced meat of your choice (I used leftover pork roast and it was fantastic.  I can’t wait to try it with grilled chicken. If you want to keep it vegetarian, skip the meat)

Topping:
1/4 cup sesame sticks

Mix dressing ingredients and whisk or shake so that everything gets emulsified.  Toss with salad ingredients.  Top with sesame sticks.

This was so good.  Hubs and I both had 2 bowls of it, but we only made half this recipe.  Next time I may try adding sunflower seeds for some more nutrition.  I’ve only tried Napa Cabbage once before, it was cooked and I didn’t like it.  But, I wanted to give it the chance to redeem itself. The checkout lady didn’t even know what it was when trying to ring it up.  I’m glad to have added a new vegetable to our repertoire and a new meal to our family’s meal plan.