A simple healthy recipe for Asian Slaw – easy and crunchy, this vegan slaw can be made ahead and is delicious alongside miso salmon, or these easy salmon cakes, ginger tofu, or stuffed into tacos or added to buddha bowls—a great way to add more cruciferous veggies into our everyday meals. See our 25+ Amazing Cabbage Recipes!
This Asian Cabbage Slaw is easy to make and packed full of flavor! A wonderful excuse to purchase one of those stunning cabbages at the farmers’ market. It’s also a fantastic way to use up all the stray veggies in the fridge- that remaining half cabbage, the stray carrot or parsnip, or the leftover bell pepper.
If you are part of a CSA or shop at the farmers market, many of the veggies you’ll find there can be added to this slaw – like kohlrabi, turnips, beets, or brussels sprouts. Such an easy, useful way to add more veggies into our everyday diet.
How to Make Asian Slaw! | video
Why you’ll love this recipe: The Asian Slaw Dressing!
The Asian Slaw Dressing is the best! Not only is it made with accessible ingredients you most likely have in your pantry, but it also seems to have the right balance of sweetness, tartness, and depth with just a little heat. And of course, you can personalize it even further to your own tastes.
Asian Slaw Ingredients!
- Cabbage -any type will work here- purple, green, napa cabbage – or other shreddable veggies- carrots, bell pepper, snow peas, kohlrabi, jicama, or use a broccoli “slaw”. You’ll need 6-7 cups total for this recipe.
- Cilantro – optional, but adds so much flavor here as a beautiful color.
- Scallions- I love the flavor of green onions here; chives would also work, or sub-thinly sliced red onion in a pinch.
- Olive oil and toasted sesame oil – for richness.
- Rice wine vinegar –rice wine vinegar is milder than most other vinegar and less acidic. We use unseasoned rice vinegar– if yours is “seasoned” you may need to cut back on the sweetener here!
- Sweetener- maple syrup, honey, agave, sugar, or coconut sugar
- Soy sauce (or use a gluten-free alternative like Braggs or Coconut Amino Acids)
- Fresh ginger and garlic- use fresh grated ginger and garlic, or ginger paste and garlic paste. I do not recommend ground ginger powder.
- Chili paste (optional) or chili flakes.
How to make Asian Slaw
- Slice the cabbage finely and add it to a large bowl. Add cilantro and scallions if you like.
- Whisk Asian Slaw Dressing ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Pour the Asian dressing into slaw and toss well. Taste, adjust salt, honey and sesame oil to taste.
- Garnish with sesame seeds!
Time-saving Slaw Tips
- If short on time, many grocery stores offer gourmet “slaw mixes” already pre-shredded! These are perfect for this recipe: brussel sprouts slaw, broccoli slaw, carrot slaw… you get the idea. It’s a basic recipe designed to be used as a base for your own creations.
- If you like, you can use ginger paste (in a tube) and garlic paste in a tube to save time!
Storage and Make ahead
This Asian slaw recipe will keep up to 4 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You can prep the cabbage up to 3 days ahead as well as the dressing and toss before serving- leaving the sesame seeds off until serving.
What to serve with Asian Slaw
- Thai Turkey Burger w/ Crunchy Asian Slaw
- Seared Ahi Tuna Salad
- Salmon Cakes
- Japanese Salmon Rice Bowls
- Chicken Katsu (or Tofu Katsu!)
- Simple Baked Miso Salmon
- Seasoned Japanese Rice with Furikake
- Teriyaki Salmon with Baby Bok Choy
- Instant Pot Teriyaki Chicken
- Thai Fried Rice
- Sticky Gochujang Salmon Bowl
This is also a great way to use up stray veggies in the fridge, incorporating more nutrients into the slaw- salad turnips, kohlrabi, jicama, radishes… pretty much anything crunchy!
Hope you are having a great week, finding the beauty in what surrounds you. Even if it is simply in the face of cabbage, a beautiful, giant edible flower full of healing nutrients.
xoxo
More from Feasting At Home
Easy Crunchy Asian Slaw (w/ BEST Asian Dressing!)
- Prep Time: 20
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6
- Category: Salad, vegan, slaw, dressing
- Method: tossed
- Cuisine: Asian
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Easy Crunchy Asian Slaw with the Best Asian Dressing! A simple vegan slaw with that can be made in 20 minutes and made ahead! Serve this alongside fish, tofu, or chicken or stuffed into tacos, topped onto burgers, or added to buddha bowls.
Ingredients
- 2 – 2 1/4 lb cabbage – shredded-roughly 6-7 cups (see notes)
- 3 scallions, sliced
- 1 cup cilantro, chopped (or sub Italian Parsley)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1-3 teaspoons toasted sesame oil (start conservatively add more to taste at the end)
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
- 3 tablespoons sugar, maple syrup, honey, or coconut sugar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or GF alternative like Braggs or Coconut Amino Acids)
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated, or use ginger paste
- 1 garlic clove, grated or use garlic paste ( garlic is optional, adds punchy flavor)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes or chili paste ( optional)
- Toasted sesame seeds
- roasted, crushed peanuts or cashews
Instructions
- Toss slaw ingredients together in a large bowl. Add cilantro and scallions.
- Whisk Asian Slaw Dressing ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Pour dressing into slaw and toss well. Taste, adjust salt, honey and sesame oil to taste.
- Garnish with sesame seeds and/ or nuts.
Notes
- Feel free to Substitute shredded carrots, bell pepper, snow peas, broccoli slaw, shredded Brussels sprouts, for part of the cabbage. ( For example, I’ll often do 5 cups cabbage, 1 cup carrots, 1 cup bell pepper)
- Salad will keep up to 3-4 days in the fridge.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 179
- Sugar: 14.9 g
- Sodium: 297.9 mg
- Fat: 11.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 2.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 18.6 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 2.1 g
- Cholesterol: 0.3 mg
So fast and easy. I always have the ingredients on hand. Delicious. Even smells good
Great to hear Sparky!
Like the the dressing without any sweetener in it. It was too sweet with the maple syrup so we made it without.
Great, glad you made it your own!
I have made and love this recipe and now want to try a new tip I used with regular coleslaw last weekend. Prep the veggies, then toss them w 1 cup sugar, 1/5c kosher salt. let stand 5 minutes then rinse and dry thoroughly. Doing this step keeps the veggies from getting soggy – I just ate some leftover cole slaw from days ago and it is still crunchy – not soggy!!
Oh! Wow. That sounds so good. How do you dry thoroughly?
Making this for the second time tonight. We love the taste of this coleslaw. Thanks for this delicious recipe. Don’t know if I can wait for the chicken and ribs to be done to start eating it.
Great Dot, so happy you are enjoying!
Well, finally got around to making this, I’ve had it bookmarked for a while. Why did I wait so long? Absolutely delicious!!
Yay, so glad you gave it a try! Appreciate you taking time to review.
This is the perfect recipe I’ve been looking for! I added extra grated ginger and the end result was refreshing, crunchy and gingerly bowl of yumminess! Perfect on a summer day. Thank you!!!
Great to hear this Katie!
I love this salad. First, I made it your way, and it is great. But I also made it ultra-low calorie by changing the oil to aquafaba and the sweetener to stevia. Also, great.
Oh nice! Love the adapting.
Delicious ! Light, crunchy. I didn’t have rice wine vinegar so I substituted apple cider vinegar. I also added a little thinly sliced carrot. Will definitely make this coleslaw again.
Nice! So glad you enjoyed. Appreciate the review!
I like Asian food, this is and will be my kids favorite salad as well.
Awesome, so glad it is a hit!
this was so good!
Oh my gosh, this is delicious!!! Followed recipe exactly as written and it was the best part of my dinner!!! Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Happy you enjoyed this Kristie! Appreciate you taking time to review!
I’m about to give this one a whirl. Slaw is one of my favorite sides as cabbage is still fairly inexpensive. However, like many families, there’s always the one who has an aversion to mayonnaise and anything mayo based. I’m going to serve this alongside some coconut chicken curry and maybe my picky eater will like it. I know the rest of us definitely will!!
Let us know how it goes! I often use Greek yogurt in leu of mayo- works great!
Fantastic- just what I was looking for – a simple, easy, delicious slaw to go with chicken satay. Another hit from your website- thank you for all the great recipes!
Glad to hear you are enjoying! Thanks so much for the review.
Super Yummy, a hit with the family!
Love hearing this Sheryl! Appreciate the review.
This is a great recipe. It’s a nice change from the mayo based coleslaws. It looked like too much sugar for me so I reduced it to 1 tablespoon sugar. That was still sweeter than I prefer so next time I will cut back even more.
I put roasted salted peanuts in it and that added a lot of flavor as well as some salt. Just right.
One thing though… only make as much as you will use on the day you make it because it doesn’t hold. In fact, maybe wait until right before, or only a few hours before, you serve before adding the dressing.
This one is a keeper!
Thanks for the review! Glad you are enjoying and love that you are customizing to your taste.
Quick and easy! Chopped peanuts add a great crunch
Sounds perfect!
The dressing was great! Seems my cabbage was super tough. The cabbage was the disappointment. Will have to make a second attempt!
Thanks Marie! Glad you enjoyed the this and the cabbage may soften up as it sits.
Delicious. I added radishes since I had to use them up. I started out with 2T sesame oil and that was perfect. Thanks for the recipe, I’ve saved it.
Sounds perfect Megan! Appreciate the review.
I usually don’t rate a recipe if I tweak it in any way. It seems unfair to the creator to comment after a bunch of adjustments. Having said that, I do want to comment on this recipe. I made the dressing 100% as written & it is delicious! I found myself craving dinner with an Asian flair and also the need to use up some leftovers & bits of produce I had on hand before they spoiled. Here is where I deviated. I used bagged cole slaw mix (about half a bag of a bulk bag) and then finely chopped some raw broccoli florets to make up for the cabbage I was short. Everything else was done as written & the whole thing turned out fantastic! It’s going to be a great complement to the fried rice & spicy chicken Ramen on our dinner menu for tonight. Seems like a very forgiving & versatile recipe for making something yummy out of whatever you have in your fridge.
Love it Shawna! Thanks for taking the time to leave this review, it is so helpful to hear your innovations.
So good! Served this with your Sesame Ahi Tuna steaks. Everyone loved it.
Great to hear Josie!