This colourful Asian Brown Rice Salad with Shredded Chicken and Sesame dressing is ready in four simple steps. Simply shred chicken, finely slice veggies, serve on microwave brown rice and top with sesame peanut dressing and broken-up seaweed crackers. This is delicious, simple and easy.

Asian Brown Rice Chicken Salad in a bowl.

This four-step salad is a great recipe for busy days because it requires very little actual cooking - most of it is chopping. It's perfect as a main dish or works well if you are asked to bring a tasty salad to a party or BBQ. I used my favorite new serving ware from "Put a lid on it" - it's great for taking to picnics in the park as it has a lid all built in, and everything is made from recycled plastic.

Ingredients you'll need to make this Asian Rice Salad

Ingredients for Dressing:

2 tablespoon fresh ginger (grated)
Juice of 1 lemon
⅓ cup smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar (or rice vinegar)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon sesame oil
⅓ cup water

Salad Ingredients:

¼ red cabbage (thinly sliced)
2 carrots (julienned or thinly sliced)
1 cup frozen edamame beans (blanched and drained)
1 avocado (cubed)
½ bunch of green onions (spring onions) sliced at an angle
½ bunch cilantro (roughly chopped)
½ BBQ rotisserie chicken (shredded, discard carcass)
450 g microwave brown basmati rice
2 teaspoon black sesame seeds
45 g seaweed rice crackers

Substitutions and Add-ins

Instead of brown rice, you can also use white rice, wild rice, or leftover rice.

This salad is a great way to use up leftover vegetables, like snow peas, red capsicum (red bell pepper), red onion, or even water chestnuts, so feel free to get creative. Simply slice the crispy vegetables up finely to add to the salad.

Instead of lemon juice, you can use lime juice. You can also swap rice wine vinegar for fish sauce.

How to make Asian Brown Rice Salad

In a jug, make the dressing by combining grated ginger, lemon juice, peanut butter, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, honey, sesame oil, and water. Whisk until well blended.
Prepare the salad ingredients:
- Thinly slice the red cabbage.
- Julienne or thinly slice the carrots.
- Blanch the edamame beans in boiling water, then drain.
- Cube the avocado.
- Slice the green onions at an angle.
- Roughly chop the cilantro.
Shred the BBQ rotisserie chicken into a bowl, discarding the carcass. It should be at room temperature. Heat the brown rice in the microwave.
To serve, place the heated rice, sliced vegetables, and shredded chicken in a large bowl. Drizzle the peanut dressing over the top. Garnish with coriander, green onions, black sesame seeds, and break the seaweed rice crackers over the salad.

Enjoy your delicious Asian Brown Rice and Chicken Salad!

Top tip when making Asian Brown Rice Salad

I prefer to use instant brown basmati rice because it is quicker and easier than making brown rice in a rice cooker, however, if you want to, you can make brown rice from scratch. You generally need 2 cups of water for every cup of rice if you use a rice cooker, and allow the rice to cool before you add it to the salad. Brown rice is the perfect base for this salad.

Kid-Friendly Variations

To make this recipe kid-friendly, serve elements separately, and offer it to them without the dressing first.

Kid-friendly Asian Brown Rice Chicken Salad

How to Store Asian Brown Rice Salad

If you plan on eating this over multiple days, only dress each individual serves at the time of eating. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for 1-2 days.

Equipment

You will need a microwave and a mandolin (optional).

More Salad Recipes

If you like Asian salad recipes you should also try my Satay Chicken Noodle Salad or my Beef and Ginger Soba Noodle Salad or my most popular salad recipe on the blog, my Thai Beef Salad.

Recipe