Looking for a recipe to use up the remains of a roast chicken, I came across this salad in the book The Art of Eating Well by Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley.

I adjusted it slightly to suit the ingredients I had in the cupboard.  Rather than using two cucumbers, I used one together with a sweet potato spiralized.   I had pak choi, but used baby gem lettuce instead of the romaine or cos.  Not having any spring onions, I finely sliced a white onion instead.  The result was just as delicious and tasty.  A refreshing salad with Asian flavours using up my left-over chicken.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons black or white sesame seeds
2 cucumbers
1 small head of romaine or cos lettuce
1 small head pak choi or 150g Chinese cabbage
3 spring onions
A handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
250g cooked shredded chicken
1 finely sliced red chilli to garnish (optional)

For the Sesame Dressing:

5 tablespoons sesame oil (not toasted) or extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
Juice of 1 lime or 3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons raw runny honey
1 teaspoon tamari or sea salt

METHOD:

Gently toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan until fragrant.

Use a spiralizer or julienne peeler to make the cucumber noodles. Or use a regular vegetable peeler to slice the cucumbers lengthways into wide pappardelle-style ribbons. You might want to cut the long strands in half to make them easier to eat.

Prepare the dressing by whisking together all of the ingredients in a bowl.

Slice the lettuce and pak choi into thin ribbons. Add to a bowl with the spring onion, coriander and cucumber noodles.

Pour over the dressing and mix everything together (hands are best). Toss with the chicken.

Mix well together, sprinkle with the sesame seeds and sliced chilli.

Serve immediately.

Sesame Chicken Salad with Cucumber Noodles

If you want to make this in advance, everything can be mixed together except the cucumber noodles.  Leave these until the last minute to spiralize and stir them in along with the dressing just before serving.

NB: All the photographs used in this blog have been taken by me, and are of food I have prepared myself.