Ah, Salad. We have had a rocky relationship in the past, and I sincerely apologize for that because you are delicious. I never was a huge fan of salad until I got older. I just thought they were BO-ring. Iceberg lettuce, carrots, cukes, ranch dressing. Blah, blah, blah. Boring. FALSE! If you put the right ingredients together, salads can be the bomb.com.

I could literally eat a salad every single day for the rest of my life because there are SO many different things you can do with them. So, so, so, so, so many things. The possibilities are endless ?, and I love that. It’s so fun to try new combinations, add a bunch of random ingredients together, and create that perfect bite. Well…sometimes create that perfect bite. There have been more than a few times that I got a teensie bit overconfident in my creativity and added some stuff together that was preeeettty hideous. I’ll leave it at that.

One key to salad is texture. The best salads are the ones where you can fork the perfect bite that includes a delicious variety of textures and flavors ??! Why the salsa-dancing-woman emoji? Because getting that perfect bite makes you want to strike a salsa pose like my friend here ??. Nah mean?

SO – this salad. This isn’t really a typical salad in the way that it doesn’t have a bunch of different things thrown together. It’s pretty simple – cabbage, dressing, peanuts, cilantro. It’s really like a mix between cole-slaw and salad, and it is heavenly.

The cabbage is so crunchy and fresh, the creamy peanut dressing is absolutely packed with delicious flavor, the peanuts add an extra pop of texture (and reinforce that peanut flavor), and the cilantro gives that final note of fresh brightness. So…more about that dressing…peanut dressing ???.

What’s in it?

Peanut butter (surprise!!!)
Lime juice
Rice vinegar
Sesame oil
Sriracha

Whisk it. Whisk it good. Bum bum bum bum bummm.

This dressing coats the cabbage perfectly and makes the salad taste absolutely wonderful.

Three cheers for easy salads! And cabbage! And peanuts! Aaaaannnnddddd…easy salads!

On a non-cabbage note, guess who comes to school with me now??? Boone! Boone! Boone! Well, not during school, but after school for play practice. So what I was doing was leaving school the second the bell rang, picking Boone up from doggie daycare (STOP JUDGING ME), driving him all the way home, and driving all the way back to school for play practice.

This wouldn’t be a big deal if I didn’t live thirty minutes away, but that extra hour of driving every day was killin’ me, smalls. So I talked to my principal about picking up Boone from daycare (STOP IT) and just putting him in my classroom in his crate until practice was over.

And he said yes. Yaassssssssss, so much time and inconvenience saved. I will say, however, that a massive dog crate hanging out in my classroom every day has raised many, many, MANY questions from my students, and even more desperate desires to crawl inside the crate. Sigh…

So that’s my weekly update. Is it just me or are my weekly updates always about my dog? Don’t answer that.

Salad! Peanut Dressing! A few more salsa dancing ladies for the road, ??????. You’re welcome.

For you 21 Day Fix people, here are your container amounts:

1 green container
1 blue container (peanuts)
2 teaspoons (peanut butter)
1 orange container (rest of dressing ingredients)

*The cilantro is “free”*

Click here to see more 21 Day Fix recipes!

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Peanut Dressing [21 Day Fix]

Author: Annie Chesson
Prep Time: 20 mins
Total Time: 20 mins
Yield: 6 servings 1x

Scale

Ingredients

2 cups shredded purple cabbage
4 cups shredded napa cabbage
1/4 cup cilantro (more or less to taste)
4 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Small squeeze Sriracha
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup peanuts, chopped

Instructions

Add the cabbage, cilantro, and peanuts into a large salad bowl
To make the dressing, whisk together all ingredients in a bowl (peanut butter, lime juice, rice vinegar, sesame oil, Sriracha, and water)
Pour dressing on top of salad – toss to combine (you may want to add less dressing. This is based on preference)

*This recipe is gluten free and vegan*