It’s no secret that I adore color.
I love colorful food! And colorful artwork. And colorful sunsets. And colorful scarves. And colorful gardens. And colorful farmers market.
The only place where I have decided that I do not like bright colors? On my walls.
Oh man. I bought my first house when I was 23, and quickly discovered in that first year how easy (and cheap!) it was to buy a can of paint and completely transform a room. So I took a house whose interior was 100% gray and transformed it over the course of that first month into a veritable rainbow of colors. The living room was butter yellow, the dining room was “asparagus” green, the kitchen periwinkle, my bedroom teal, my bathroom yellow, and on and on. I thought it was the coolest thing. I mean, all of my favorite colors? In one house? What could be better??
The only problem was that it was a small 1920’s bungalow, and each of the rooms were connected and about thiiiis big. So it basically felt like a kaleidoscope walking in. Although instead of being pretty bright colors on tiny paint chips, the rooms began to feel like very bright colors the size of 1000 paint chips. Yes, I learned that there was such a thing as too much color.
So I swallowed my pride and traipsed back to Home Depot and eventually began neutralizing the house with the very creams and grays and whites that I used to think were oh-so-cliche about decorating. And then when I moved into my loft, I went for 100% light grey to go with my white kitchen and brick walls, and I could not be happier. To each his and her own, for sure. Some people rock out super-colorful houses. But for me, I prefer to go neutral with the paint colors, and let vivid food provide the “pop” of color in my kitchen.
Like this rainbow Thai chicken salad, of course.
I have been a Thai chicken salad lover for years, with Panera’s version actually being one of my favs. But whenever I make it at home, I love seeing how many different colors — er, ingredients — I can cram into it to make it all the prettier and tastier.
This version?
As you can see, we hit nearly every color of the rainbow. We have:
- Red: bell peppers
- Orange: carrots (and you could also throw in orange bell peppers)
- Yellow: fresh mango (don’t use frozen)
- Green: avocado, green onions, cabbage, fresh cilantro and fresh limes
- Purple: cabbage
Plus chicken and thai peanut dressing and chopped cashews or peanuts. I still have yet to find an awesome blue veggie for rainbow recipes. Alas, maybe someday.
Anyway, this salad is super simple to make. The hardest part is just chopping all of that fresh produce. But if you pop on some tunes and have a little kitchen dance party while you chop, I guarantee the time will fly right by…
…and you’ll have a delicious salad ready to go in no time!
I also chose to just drizzle my salads with the peanut vinaigrette so that my friends could see and appreciate the rainbow-ness of the salad. But you can also toss it all together if you’d rather.
Either way, it’s a fabulous way to taste the rainbow. And oh man, is it a tasty one too. Enjoy!
Rainbow Thai Chicken Salad
Ingredients
Thai Chicken Salad Ingredients:
- 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
- 2 cups shredded purple cabbage
- 1 cup shredded green cabbage
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1 mango, peeled, pitted and diced
- 1 (large) carrot, julienned or shredded
- 1 red pepper, cored and julienned (or diced)
- 1 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions
- 1/4 cup chopped cashews or peanuts
Peanut Dressing Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
- 2-3 tablespoons hot water
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce (if you are gluten-free, use GF soy sauce or tamari)
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
- juice of 1 lime
- pinch of red pepper flakes
Instructions
To Make The Salad:
- Toss all salad ingredients together until combined. Drizzle with dressing or toss to combine, then serve immediately.
To Make The Dressing:
- Whisk all ingredients together until combined. If the dressing is too thick, add hot water a teaspoon at a time until it reaches the consistency you desire.
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
OMG this looks soooo good. Thank-you for sharing
I don’t usually comment on recipes but I can not help myself. This salad is amazing. The dressing is beyond words. Anyone who tries this will not regret it. I will be eating this many more times
Thanks Kelly, I really appreciate it!
Delicious!! I’ve made this a couple times. Thank you for the recipe!
I pinned this beautiful salad quite a while ago and finally made it tonight. The salad ingredients themselves were great, however I will be looking for another dressing recipe to use with the leftovers tomorrow. No one in my family of 5 liked the dressing. It seemed very much like putting peanut butter on a salad. I felt like it needed maybe half the amount of peanut butter with much more oil, and maybe some jalapeño or something for heat? We all put sprinkled more pepper flakes on top of our salad to try to get it to taste like something besides peanut butter. I’m anxious to try it again tomorrow with a different dressing.
Looks great! I can’t stand mangoes though, so will have to think of something else that’s yellow and a little sweet.
You could sub in pineapple if you’d like. Or mandarin oranges. :)
You could use blue organic tortilla chips for your blue!!
Yum! Have never seen blue vegetables… or blue food – maybe I would add some borage flowers – edible and blue!!!
My amazing husband made this last night for work lunches today so I’m crunching as I type…this is so delicious and perfect for my GF/DF lifestyle! Thanks so much for sharing!
I made this… I put curly leaf lettuce in it as well. Very good!!! Thanks!
While I used edamame instead of avocado, I just fixed this for supper and the husband and I both loved it! I think it will become a staple in my house. Thanks a delicious rainbow!