Asian Dump Salad!

This week's dump salad is asian inspired with soybeans, mandarin oranges, almonds, cucumbers, onion, cabbage, carrots and sesame sticks all tossed in a sweet and spicy peanut vinaigrette.  It is low in calories and high in protein without even having meat in it (although if you have any left over rotisserie chicken that would be great shredded and tossed in, as well).

You can also pick and choose some ingredients in this week's dump salad, like if you don't have almonds, then peanuts or cashews would be equally as good or if you can't find sesame sticks then crunchy asian noodles are a great substitute and if you are allergic to soy then, it is totally fine without the soybeans!  The Sweet and Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette can be found at Trader Joe's and makes this salad so sweet and spicy at the same time, LOVE it :-)

What You Need:

1/2 to 1 cup of cooked soybeans taken out of their shell

1/2 cup of thinly sliced red onion

1/2 bag of shredded cabbage and carrots

1/2 regular cucumber, diced (or 2 small persian cucumbers, halved)

1/2 a jar or 1 cup of mandarin oranges

1/2 cup of slivered or sliced almonds (OR halved peanuts or cashews)

1/2 a jar or so of Trader Joe's spicy peanut vinaigrette

handful of sesame sticks or asian noodles (both can be found at Wal-Mart!)

cook 2 cups of frozen edamame according to package in your glass bowl with water

pop soybeans into bowl and out of the edamame pods (dispose of pods)

quarter 1/2 of your cucumber and dump into bowl

thinly slice about half a cup or your red onion and dump into bowl

dump half your jar of drained mandarin oranges into bowl (about 1 cup full)

sliver your almonds (or half your peanuts/cashews) and dump into bowl

dump half a bag of shredded cabbage and carrots into your bowl

pour about half your jar of dressing into bowl, toss, cover and throw in the fridge

add your sesame sticks or asian noodles per serving (so that they don't get soggy) and DIG IN!

This would even be great as a slaw for a side dish or on top of a teriyaki burger, get creative ;)