Salads are one the best meals to have when you just do not know what to serve for dinner. They are also great when you are not necessarily hungry, but still need something to fill your stomach and nourish your body. This Sweet Peanut Cabbage Salad is one of my favorites to make and serve. This salad comes together so quickly and with such ease. It is almost effortless to make. What is great about this salad is that it requires basic ingredients that can be found at any grocery store.
The raw truth about salads is that they are only as healthy as you make them. You can make a salad, but have a bunch of unhealthy ingredients in there that defeat the purpose for having the salad in the first place. I chose to use less ingredients but with three main components. I used cabbage (bagged coleslaw) as the lettuce base, some sweetened and toasted peanuts for the topping/crunch and some homemade peanut dressing. I wanted to sweeten up my peanuts and dressing, but did not want to use sugar. I opted for honey as a sweetener. If you do not want to use honey, you can use agave.
It is important to toss all the ingredients together (the coleslaw mixture, sweet toasted peanuts and peanut dressing) in a large bowl before serving. This helps to really get everything evenly coated with the dressing and sweet toasted peanuts. You want to be able to taste every ingredient in every bite you take of this salad.
Peanut Dressing Cabbage Mixture
This salad serves 4 people. This means that each person can eat a total of about 1 cup. Of course, this is just a gauge, if you find you want less or more, make those adjustments according to what works best for you and those to whom you are serving.
Now, this salad is truly already filling as it is because the cabbage is so dense. However, sometimes, I will have this with some steamed white or brown rice on the side. It is phenomenal that way and the peanut dressing tastes delicious when drizzled over the rice.
Sweet Peanut Cabbage Salad
Lastly, do not let the ingredients intimidate you. It may look like a lot, but they blend together so nicely. They are actually pretty basic ingredients that create something so unique. As you can see this salad comes together in almost no time at all. I hope you make this and enjoy it!