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
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)
Asian Slaw Dressing:
- 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)
Optional toppings:
- 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
Is it better to dress this in advance or right before serving? I’ve got it all ready to go…can’t wait to eat it.
I like to let it marinate a bit, but totally up to you.
Thanks!
I loved this recipe! I won’t lie, I didn’t have a lot in the fridge when I made it, so the base was just a big head of napa cabbage, shredded. I added in chow mein noodles and toasted almonds. Even with all of the modifications it was delicious. I’ll make it by the recipe next time!
Love it Melissa!
Delicious! I loved the added chilli flakes for some spice. Will definitely be saving this recipe. Thank you!
Awesome Kaleigh!!!
This recipe is absolutely delicious and so versatile! We had it as a side dish the first day and day 2 it made an absolutely amazing base for grilled dish tacos. I will be making this again!
Awesome- glad you liked it! 🙌
This was amazing! I made it early in the day for our dinner. The first night we ate it with some burgers. The second night I put crunched up dry Ramen noodles in it and we ate it as our main dish. The third day we had some with our lunch. I stopped after the third day but my husband kept eating it until day 5 when he finished it. He wants me to make it again. Very delicious. Flavors are spot on.
This will be made again, my family scarfed it all down last night, no leftovers 🙂 Great recipe!
I was a bit loose with the dressing mix. Not enough honey, substituted maple syrup. The pepper flakes were too much. Some cabbages already have a heat to them. The cilantro was too much for me. 1/2 a.cup next time. Really happy with this dish. Definitely a keeper.
Thanks so much David…and great to hear! 🙌
We made this slaw to go with Father’s Day BBQ dinner, it was perfect for summer meal. Crunchy, refreshing and all the flavors. The slaw was a huge hit! Thank you Sylvia!
Yay!!! Great to hear. Thanks for sharing! 🙌
Followed the recipe rather loosely, swapping some ingredients but it turned out just brilliant. I love coleslaw but got a bit tired of it and this is a very happy alternative. Thanks
Thanks so much and so happy you liked it! 👏
Hi. Can anyone tell me if this will work with a little sugar substitute instead of honey? Thanks!!
Feel free to give it a try. It does need some sweetness to balance out the other flavors.
I used the syrup of candied gingers, never heard about the brown rice syrup and my honey is too thick. It was perfect, ginger being in the recipe already. My other alternative was maple syrup. Sugar could work too but I’d use confectioners sugar or make sure is mixed well.
I made this recipe and the star of this s recipe was the dressing. Thank you for sharing. I’ve tried SO MANY salad dressing recipe and this was the BEST. It has a lot of room for adjustment and does not compromise the flavor (I’ve tried different variations and the taste is true to it’s base). Thanks for sharing again.
Yay!!! 🙌
Love this recipe so much! Thank you!
This salad is not only beautiful but tastes great too! The colors make you so happy! I chopped a lot of my veggies in Blender and blended the dressing in there too, easy!
Perfect for a hot summer day with some grilled chicken! Plan to make this all summer long!
Made this salad for light lunch in this lockdown and it was amazing fresh clean food with deep flavours. This is definitely going to my regular go to lunch. Going to try other recipes from your Website.
Thanks!
Great Recipe- was missing something. Juiced a lime, cake out perfect.
Delicious dressing! I hit it with about a tablespoon of orange juice too and I can’t get enough of it!
Love it Joanna!
This recipe was perfect, simple, and really hit the spot. The dressing was exactly what I wanted. My veggies were regular cabbage, sugar snap peas, carrot, orange bell pepper, and red onion…just what I had on hand. Delicious!
Perfect!
I basically just cook whatever you present & always love it. namaste
OMG, fabulous.
I basically just cook whatever you present & always love it. namaste
THanks Dede!
I have made this twice and love it. Used chili sesame oil because I like it spicy. So good.
Excellent dressing! Great with all grilled meats.
As always, the straightforward and full flavored recipe you always devise. I needed to use grilled flank steak I bought from a restaurant (to support them) and this crunchy salad and especially dressing was perfect! I used bell peppers, napa and red cabbage and carrots. I’ll use the rest with tofu. For me it’s peanuts AND sesame seeds. Thank you, Sylvia!
This was awesome. I didn’t add the chili flakes or paste because I don’t like spice too much. I ran out of rice vinegar at a tablespoon and a half so had to sub apple juice. It is still sooo good. Thank you.
Thanks Beth!
Incredible dressing, thank you so much! My new go to! I will check out more of your recipes!
Thanks so much Becky!
Loved this slaw. I made it with rainbow carrots and cabbage. I subbed the Chile flakes for 1 tsp hot chili oil. Served with grilled salmon. Delicious.
Sounds delish!