A Rainbow Thai Chicken Peanut Salad with bell peppers, slaw, red cabbage and carrots in a rainbow of colors with a delicious and light peanut dressing for a diet friendly salad.
This Thai Chicken Peanut Salad, like the Mango Curry Chicken Salad is the perfect cold temperature healthy lunch option you’ll love!
Why is this salad such a great lunch option? Well most Thai peanut salads get their crunch from peanuts or cashews, but this salad gets it’s crunch from an actual rainbow of vegetables. With red, yellow and orange bell peppers, carrots and cabbages you won’t even miss the crunch of croutons of peanuts.
The dressing is delicious, creamy and indulgent because the entire rest of the salad is super healthy. Sometimes we even eat this chicken salad in lettuce cups for a fun lettuce taco type lunch.
Sometimes the biggest struggle in making healthy lunches is taking the time to prepare them. One of the best things about this salad is the vegetables are hearty. They can take being prepared days ahead of time. So take a bit of time on Sunday to cut up your bell peppers and cabbages and you’ll thank yourself when you save all that money and points throughout the week.
Want to make this into a Thai chicken dinner?
- Instead of the cabbage serve it over rice, or zucchini noodles.
- Instead of chicken you can swap out salmon or shrimp that you can serve on top of the salad.
- Instead of making it into a salad you can cut the pieces into chunks like in my Beef Teriyaki Skewers or Lemon Greek Chicken Skewers and serve the dressing on top or as a dip on the side.
- If you have a light tortilla option you like, you can wrap this with some rice into a burrito.
- Want to make it into a pizza (like the CPK Thai Chicken Pizza), cook the pizza crust then top with the salad and a little bit extra cilantro. Would be great on a thin crust.
Tools Used in the making of this Rainbow Thai Chicken Peanut Salad:
Griddle Pan: Perfect for cooking chicken with little to no oil.
Cast Iron Skillet: This is my most used pan in my kitchen, heavy, keeps heat well and gives the BEST sear ever.
Pig Tail Flipper: I use this to flip almost anything in a skillet or grill without damaging the skin/breading/seasonings and its super easy.
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts boneless and skinless
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse black pepper
- 1/2 green cabbage sliced
- 1/2 red cabbage sliced
- 1 red bell pepper sliced
- 1 yellow bell pepper sliced
- 1 green bell pepper sliced
- 1/4 red onion sliced thinly
- 2 carrots julienned
- 1/4 cup cilantro chopped
Peanut Dressing:
- 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 lime zested and juiced
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Instructions
- Heat a griddle pan on high heat and spray with cooking spray.
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
- Cook the chicken on high heat 5-7 minutes on each side.
- Slice the chicken add it to a large bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients.
- In a small bowl whisk the dressing ingredients and pour it over the salad and toss together.
Nutrition
I love the flavors you have in this salad! Looks tasty!
Thanks Amy!
This looks like a fabulous light lunch!
This is my idea of the perfect lunch — love the flavors!
I LOVE this!!! So light and delicious!!
I love anything that looks this pretty! Love the rainbow!
This looks so great! I have a similar dish, and I’m totally addicted to it! Love that this one is only a few WW points!
I love this salad! I’ve made it twice in the past few weeks. I put the chicken salad right on a bed of lettuce. Delicious!
What a great idea to put it on lettuce! Yum!