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Shredded cabbage and kale, shrimp, avocado, cilantro and chili-flavored peanuts, and the perfect sweet miso dressing.
This is a brand new recipe that’s part of our Spring 2023 SOS Series – in other words, EASY recipes! View our full collection of SOS recipes here.
In This Post: Everything You Need For Miso Crunch Salad
Notes From Lindsay
Cabbage, kale, shrimp, cilantro, peanuts, and creamy sweet miso dressing… I could eat this every day for lunch and be happy with my life. (And by could, I mean I currently am.)
We were actually planning to publish this later in the SOS Series, but I could not wait to get this into your hands because I’m so obsessed with it. So here she is, making an early entrance! This salad is so perfect for these early days of spring / summer when it’s starting to warm up and the grass is turning green again and the body is just feeling aggressively ready for salads.
So many of these salad ingredients are easy to buy pre-made / pre-ready to eat (I get a lot of them at Trader Joe’s):
- pre-shredded cabbage
- pre-chopped kale
- cooked shrimp
- chili onion peanuts
And this miso dressing can be blitzed up in about two minutes. It is creamy, sweet, springy, delicate, and just very life-giving. Just a little bit of garlic, but not overpowering, and the punch from the lime is the most delicious little jolt of wake-me-up energy that you want in a salad.
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Description
This Miso Crunch Salad is made for springtime! Major crunch for veggies like cabbage and kale, a tiny bite of heat from chili-flavored peanuts, chilled shrimp, and the perfect sweet miso dressing.
Miso Dressing:
Miso Crunch Salad:
- Shake all dressing ingredients in a jar, or blend together in a small food processor (affiliate link) until smooth. If it’s on the thicker side, add a bit of water until it pours smoothly off the end of a spoon.
- Toss all salad ingredients with dressing! You can do this as a large batch (serves 4-6) or prep the elements and store them separately to make the salads one at a time for individual lunches and dinners throughout the week, which is what I usually do! Crunchy, sweet, delicate, and fresh!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Salad
- Method: Chop
- Cuisine: Asian-Inspired
Keywords: miso salad, shrimp salad, salad recipe
What Is Miso?
Miso is a fermented soybean paste that is used in Japanese cooking.
You can buy multiple varieties of miso – yellow, red, and white are the three I’m most familiar with. The one I’m using here and the one I’d recommend is white miso, which is very mild and almost sweet. It has a more delicate and nuanced flavor, which is so perfect in this salad.
I usually find it in the produce section of the grocery store, near the tofu!
What To Use Instead Of Miso?
Tahini could be a good substitute! It’s similarly creamy, but it’s less salty, so if you do use tahini (in equal proportions to the miso), I would recommend seasoning the dressing with extra salt or even a shot of soy sauce.
Other Protein Options?
Rotisserie chicken is great in this salad! I’ve done it many times.
Can It Be Vegan / Vegetarian?
Edamame is a great veg protein that I love throwing into this salad!
Any Other Veggies?
I have enjoyed spinach (in place of the kale), and finely chopped broccoli, cucumber, and bell pepper.
Making This Nut-Free?
You could use sunflower seeds (that’s what the Churchill Street miso crunch salad uses!) or wonton strips instead of the nuts!
How To Keep Leftovers?
The salad is best within the first 15-30 minutes after tossing it together! The greens and cabbage will start to lose some of their crunch after they sit in the dressing for a while. So if you’re serving it to a group, just toss it up, serve it fresh, and have everybody eat as much as possible. 🙂
On the other hand, if you’re eating this one serving at a time, it works really well to prep everything (dressing, shrimp, peanuts, cilantro, and greens) and have those elements in the fridge so you can throw this together as individual lunch portions throughout the week.
Make It Even Easier?
I can confirm that this is delicious with just a store-bought Asian-style dressing that is pumped up with some extra salt, extra sugar, and maybe even a spoonful of white miso. Kind of a hybrid homemade miso dressing, ya know? I made it the hybrid way for an Easter get-together and everyone raved about it!
Source Notes
This salad is a cousin to the avocado shrimp salad from years ago! The 2023 version – the one you see here – is more like a slaw, which I am totally loving! And the dressing skips the ginger.
I saw a Miso Crunch Salad on the menu at a restaurant near us called Churchill Street, and I wanted to replicate it, which is where this idea came from!