She asked what I was doing taking pictures of wonton wraps. I said it’s for a xanga post. I said they seem to like food posts. I said I try to give them what they like. Just don’t get too demanding. Ha. Like that will happen.

If you’ve ever had the Asian Sesame Chicken Salad or something like that at Panera Bread, and liked it, you will probably like this. It is very similar, although not a clone. We were first introduced to this salad, sans chicken, by my sister Laura. I’m not sure if this is her exact recipe or not. This is presented as a complete meal but you can easily serve this as a side dish and skip the chicken. Here it is:

Asian Salad

1 head lettuce
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1 T. sesame seeds
1/2 pkg wonton wraps, cut into 1/3″ strips and fried

Optional: sliced almonds, finely chopped cilantro

Dressing:
2 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. accent
1/2 tsp. black pepper
3 T. vinegar
1/4 c. oil

Grilled Chicken:
4 boneless skinless breasts
1 c. Italian Dressing
1 c. water
1 T. Natures Seasoning
Marinate for at least 12 hours before grilling.

The least fun job is frying up the wonton strips. In case you don’t know what wonton wraps are, here they are.

 

They can be found in the produce section of most grocery stores. They are very thin but puff up a little when you fry them.

Try to cut them a little straighter than I did. Drop them into hot oil and they will puff up and turn a golden brown. Keep them stirred so they brown evenly. It takes around 1-2 minutes and they’re done.

Honestly, they look a little gross here.

But they are so nice and crisp when they’re done.

At a closer look, yeah, it doesn’t look very appetizing so ignore them except to turn them.

This is how much you get from half a package. That’s a dinner plate, btw.

The dressing is quite easy to make. I just dump all of the ingredients in the jar and shake it up. This is how much one recipe makes:

Kinda gets lost in the jar there. But see I like to double the recipe and store the excess in the fridge for later use. It stays good a long time.

But if you feeling a strong conscience against using Accent (the wicked MSG) you can leave it out, or cut back on it. I have to admit I did use half the amount it calls for.

Throw the chicken on the grill.

My rule of thumb for boneless breast meat is that if you think it’s done, it probably is. Years of making SURE meat was fully cooked by over-grilling have been over for a while now. White meat is just not something you want to let dry out.

Yum! I could handle some of that right now. And by the way, this is how we made the chicken for last weekend’s grilled chicken sandwiches.

After you pull the chicken off the grill, let it cool and then slice it thinly.

For the lettuce, I used mostly Romaine and some iceburg. And I didn’t have sunflower seeds so I used dry roasted pumpkin seeds instead which I like just as well, better actually.

Add the wonton strips, crunching them up a litttle so they are not in big pieces.

Add enough dressing to make it wet but not dripping and toss it but for pity’s sake, get a bigger bowl than I did. That’s a weakness of mine – trying to mix something in a too smallcontainer.

Place it in a salad plate and add the chicken on the top. And dig in.

Is it lunchtime yet? I forgot. For lunch I have jasmine rice and curry chicken.

We are not regular meat and potato people as you can tell. In fact, several weeks ago we did have meat (grilled ribeyes) and potatoes for supper. The next night it was baked oatmeal (Carolyn’s recipe) with frozen peaches. I honestly couldn’t tell you which meal I enjoyed more. I’m just weird like that.

Have a great weekend!