Summer’s Best Chicken “Salad”: Spilled Milk #228

With this simple hack, you'll never have a dry chicken salad again.

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OK, lets go.

I am an unapologetic lover of ALL cuisines. I do realize that half of the food I cook is from a handful of countries in Asia. And often those recipes find their way here. There are some reasons for that.

Most important is that so many folks LOVE to eat food from Korea, China, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, etc., and make it a point to go out for it — and very few try to make their favorite dishes at home. That’s a shame, especially for those of us who love those umami dense flavors and the incredible balance of contrasting textures, tastes, aromas and meal formats that Asian foods of all types represent. So I it make my responsibility to share recipes in the hope some of you will cook more of that food.

Another reason I cook a lot of food from Asian countries is that living in the farmland of the upper Midwest, miles from where any delivery service might venture, means that I am cooking a greater percentage of those foods in my home. I need to make my own pad Thai, because no one is bringing it to my door.

I know I need to do a better job of cooking as many different things as I can on these pages, in every sense of the word. More baking, more soups, more vegetarian foods … I get it. But today is a day for one of my favorite chicken salads of summer. And yes, it is Chinese.

It’s a cold dish for warm days, it’s economical — and of course the recipe includes some of those ‘cheffy’ little tricks that will make you a better cook — it has some ingenious sub-recipes, and I guarantee you will make this dish again and again if you try it once.

Enjoy!

Recipe: Summer’s Best Chicken “Salad”