Asian Cabbage Salad with Creamy Almond Dressing (2024)

This colorful Asian cabbage salad, or Asian coleslaw, has a creamy, no-mayonnaise dressing made with almond butter (or cashew butter). Ginger, garlic, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce (or tamari for GF), and rice vinegar round out the dressing fantastic flavors. It's crisp, crunchy, and cool with lots of veggies.

This is a terrific all-purpose summer salad for lunches, picnics and parties, or cookouts with grilled meat, chicken and seafood or burgers. With so many bright colors it looks like an explosion of confetti.

Salad Ingredients

Here's what you need for the salad:

• Napa cabbage
• Green cabbage(half head)
• Purple cabbage(¼ head)
• 3 carrots
• 1red, orange or yellow bell pepper
• Cilantroor Italian parsley

Dressing Ingredients

• Creamy almond or cashew butter
• Unseasoned rice vinegaror white vinegar
• Coconut oil or MCT
• Low sodium tamari, soy sauceor coconut aminos
• Toasted sesame oil
• Ginger or pureed ginger from jar
• Garlic
• Honey

What is Napa Cabbage?

Napa cabbage is also called Chinese cabbage, celery cabbage, Peking cabbage, Hakusai and Wong Bok, so it can be a little confusing at the market. It’s a large, heavy, sort of football shaped head with large, pale green, crinkly leaves. The flavor is mild and the texture is nice and crisp. Find more info at this link. It's available at most grocery stores.

Besides Asian cabbage salad, Napa cabbage is good for sautéing, using raw in tacos or using as a shell for tacos or wraps. Use extra Napa cabbage leaves instead of Romaine for these Asian Lettuce Wrapsmade with ground turkey or a Caesar salad.

How to Chop Napa Cabbage

When prepping Napa cabbage for this salad, slice leaves from the bottom of the head. Cut the center ‘V’ shaped core out of each leaf, then pile the softer leaves together and chop them crosswise into thin ribbons.

Instructions

Salad and dressing can both be prepared ahead of time and stored separately until ready to serve. For salad, chop all cabbages and peppers thin, grate carrots and chop herbs.

For dressing, use a blender or whisk ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. For small batches of things I use a personal blender. It comes with handy small containers and lids, perfect for things like dressing.

This recipe makes extra dressing. Any extra keeps in a jar in the refrigerator for about a week.

To Serve

Toss vegetables with enough dressing to lightly coat and serve extra dressing on the side if desired.

Substitutions and Dietary Notes

• All of these vegetables are safe for people with histamine intolerance.
• For the dressing, use almond butter not cashew butter as cashews are are a histamine liberator for many people.
• If almonds (nuts) are a problem, use tahini (sesame seed butter).
• Try white vinegar instead of the rice vinegar, if that is a concern.
• For soy-free, try liquid coconut aminos instead of soy or tamari.

FAQ's

Updated 2/24/22

📖 Recipe