I ate my teriyaki meatball bowls all week as meal prep and absolutely loved them, but I desperately need another vegetable side to balance things out. So, I whipped up a quick crunchy cabbage salad and coated it in my yummy sesame ginger dressing. It was just perfect. The crunchiness of the the cabbage, carrots, and peanuts was such a perfect contrast to the meatballs and rice.
This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.
Meal Prep It!
This salad holds up beautifully in the refrigerator, so it’s a great salad to use for meal prep! Just store the sesame ginger dressing separately from the vegetable salad mix, and add it just before serving. The salad mix (minus dressing) should stay good in the fridge for about 4-5 days.
How to Serve Crunchy Cabbage Salad
This salad makes a great side dish, but you can also turn it into a main dish by topping it with some Easy Teriyaki Chicken, Honey Sriracha Tofu, Easy Orange Chicken, or Sesame Tempeh. You can also add some cold noodles to this salad for extra oomph (this is the same base as my Cold Peanut Noodle Salad).
What if I Don’t Like Cilantro?
You either love or you hate cilantro. It’s all good. If you’re not a cilantro lover, just leave it out of this salad. No need to replace it with anything. :)
See the full post for the Sesame Ginger Dressing for more information on the ingredients and step by step instructions.
Crunchy Cabbage Salad
Servings 6 1 cup eachIngredients
Salad
- 4 cups shredded purple cabbage ($0.97)
- 2 carrots ($0.15)
- 4 green onions ($0.22)
- 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro ($0.40)
- ½ cup peanuts ($0.25)
Sesame Ginger Dressing
- ¼ cup neutral salad oil* ($0.16)
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar ($0.27)
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce ($0.06)
- 1.5 Tbsp honey ($0.18)
- 1/2 Tbsp tahini ($0.10)
- 1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil ($0.02)
- 1 clove garlic, minced ($0.08)
- 1/2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger ($0.15)
Instructions
- Shred the cabbage as finely as possible. Grate the carrots and slice the green onion. Pull the cilantro leaves from the stems
- Add the shredded cabbage, carrots, green onion, cilantro, and peanuts to a large bowl. Toss to combine.
- To make the dressing, add the salad oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, honey, tahini, toasted sesame oil, garlic, and ginger to a blender. Blend until the dressing is smooth and creamy.
- When you're ready to eat, drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss until coated. Serve immediately
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Equipment
- White Cutting Boards
- Chef’s Knife
- Grater
- Small Blender
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Crunchy Cabbage Salad – Step by Step Photos
First, shred your purple cabbage. You’ll want about 4 cups once shredded, which for me was half of this small head of cabbage. To shred the cabbage, first cut it into quarters, then cut the core off the quarter. Finally, cut across the quarter to shred the cabbage as finely as possible.
Also shred two carrots (I use a cheese grater) and slice 4 green onions.
Pull the leaves from about ½ bunch of cilantro (about 1 cup cilantro leaves). Add the shredded cabbage, carrot, sliced green onion, cilantro leaves, and ½ cup peanuts to a large bowl.
Next, make the Sesame Ginger Dressing. Add ¼ cup neutral salad oil (anything light-flavored oil like canola, peanut, grape seed, etc.), 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1.5 Tbsp honey, ½ Tbsp tahini, ¼ tsp toasted sesame oil, 1 clove garlic (minced), and ½ Tbsp grated fresh ginger to a blender. Blend until the dressing is smooth and creamy.
Pour the sesame ginger dressing over the salad and enjoy!
This was *gorgeous*!! The veggies – quite seasonal – were a perfect antidote to the richness of the Christmas leftovers.
How would these store in the fridge for 3-5 days? Will the veggies get soggy or lose its crunch? I will store the dressing in another container obviously. Thanks :)
It stays pretty crunchy. :) Cabbage is great like that!
Whoa, this is seriously delicious and I devoured it with the abandon usually reserved for less healthy foods. Even my 18-month-old is bonkers for this and keeps begging “more, more”! The dressing is very forgiving too as I was out of tamari (GF soy sauce alternative) and had to sub GF teriyaki. Also had no tahini but no matter, still tasted great! If you have to use teriyaki, there is generally already sugar and honey in the recipe so you may want to lighten up on the honey in the dressing recipe.
Loved this salad I doubled the recipe since I’m vegan and eat a ton of salad so yummy ! :) replaced the cabbage with romaine and replaced the honey in the sauce with sugar vegan it up :) would highly recommend this!!!!
My SO made this last night, paired with the honey siracha chicken and it was fantastic. We only tossed what we ate with the dressing so that it wouldn’t get soggy as leftovers. I normally am not a big fan of cabbage, but I couldn’t get enough. I do think it’s a salad for cilantro lovers, which I am.
I’d really like to try a variation on this, because I don’t like cilantro. Do you think it would work with parsley, instead?
No, parsley definitely isn’t the right flavor profile here. I think it would still be great without the cilantro and no substitute. The dressing has quite a bit of flavor, so it won’t be bland. :)
I did put flat parsley in mine I really loved it but I love parsley
My family doesn’t like cilantro (I know, I know) so I threw a large handful of baby arugula in there instead and the peppery crunch plays nicely with the rest of the flavors.
This was inedible. Looked great, but no one on this end enjoyed it. Have a backup meal in mind if you make this.
This is fantastic. I was wary about the red cabbage because usually I don’t like it raw but I let it sit in the dressing for a few minutes. The dressing is great as well!
Thank you Beth for yet another excellent recipe. This salad is part of my regular cuisine. I entertain often and every time I offer this salad, people love it… and I direct them to budgetbytes.com for more :)
Not my favorite. It’s not so much the recipe, but the cabbage is so tough that it makes the salad hard to eat. Also I would mix in the peanuts as you need them…they get a little soggy in the fridge.
We made this with sesame chicken and I did slightly change the dressing as I didn’t want to pay $7.00+ dollars for tahini. I used peanut butter and that worked pretty well. Again everyone enjoyed both dishes. I also thought you could turn this into a main dish by adding pineapple, red pepper and some rotisierre chicken (spelling may be off). Like a Tai Chicken salad.
Thank you again.
Can you use a Napa cabbage. I’m not a big fan of red cabbage.
Yep!
This salad was wonderful! I love love colorful plates. I added a cut up grilled pork chop for a complete meal – so good. I used Kraft Asian toasted sesame dressing because it’s my current fav.
Thank you!
Amazing………..keep ’em coming!
This salad is freaking amazing. In a quest to eat better and lose some weight, I’ve been eating some boring lunches lately, but I was so looking forward to this that I polished it off by 11:45 AM. I didn’t have tahini for the dressing, but I jsut put an extra splash of sesame oil and it was amazing.