Crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad, How to Do Better than Grocery Salad Bars and Bags

This crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad with a highly drinkable Miso Dressing inspired by the Miso Crunch salad-in-a-bag from Trader Joe's, is a near perfect copycat, with a few adjustments to the dressing to leave out the unnecessary ingredients and some highlights to salad making texhnique so it's utterly craveable. Shall we?

Explore More

• Ingredients You Need for Crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad
• Is this the Trader Joe's Miso Crunch Salad Copycat?
• How Much Cabbage is in 1 Head?
• What is the Best Kind of Kale for Salad?
• Instructions for How to Make the Asian Cabbage Salad (Trader Joe's Miso Crunch Dupe)
• Pro Tips and Techniques for Asian Cabbage Crunch salad
• Health and Nutrition Benefits of Asian Crunch Cabbage Salad
• Dietary Preferences/Restrictions
• Variations
• Asian Cabbage Crunch Salad with Miso Dressing Recipe

Ingredients You Need for Crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad

These are the ingredients you need for this Crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad, the Miso Crunch dupe recipe:

• ½ head green cabbage finely shredded
• ¼ head purple cabbage finely shredded
• 1 bunch kale preferably Tuscan/dinosaur, finely shredded
• 2 carrots thin julienne
• ½ cup cashews
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

If you want some carb crunch like the bagged version, add fried chow mein noodles. And if you want to make it a meal, add shredded roast chicken, from the rotisserie to make it easy on yourself.

And for the Miso Dressing

• ¼ cup avocado oil
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon tamari/soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon miso
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon ginger grated
• 2 tablespoons filtered water plus more as needed for viscosity

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

Green Cabbage. This salad uses your standard everyday green cabbage, which is so underrated as a vegetable and a salad base imho. However, you can substitute with Napa cabbage or the very ruffly savoy cabbage.

Purple Cabbage. Purple cabbage adds slightly more crunch, and of course color, which is great for aesthetics, but also as we (should) all know, a layer of nutritional dimension from the anthocyanins come from the deep prurple color.

Cashews. Use roasted, salted cashews. Roasting amplifies the umami of the cashews, and also makes them crunchy. Any other roasted salted nut that you like-almonds, pistachios, walnuts, even peanuts-will work here.

Sesame Seeds. Sesame seeds add texture and when toasted, a layer of umami in addition to the toasted sesame oil. You can buy sesame seeds plain or toasted. Make sure the seeds are toasted. Otherwise, toss them in a hot, dry skillet over medium heat for about 90 seconds or until they are fragrant.

Dressing Ingredients Notes

Rice Vinegar. I use this brand organic brown rice vinegar. If you don't have rice vinegar, use any other light/mild vinegar like apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar.

Apple Cider Vinegar. Any brand of apple cider vinegar works as long as it has the "mother," i.e. the little cloud floating inside. This generic brand of organic Apple Cider Vinegar is generally the most affordable where I shop. This well-known apple cider vinegar brand is available everywhere.

Avocado oil. I use this Avocado Oil as my every day neutral-flavored cooking oil. If you don't have avocado oil, use olive oil, though olive oil has quite a distinctive flavor.

Sesame Oil. Use toasted sesame oil. Toasted sesame oil is dark brown and is used as a finishing oil, not as a cooking oil. This is the Japanese brand that I like. You can usually find organic like this one in natural and higher end grocery stores.

Miso. Use any light-colored white or yellow miso that is labeled "organic" or "non-gmo." My favorite brands are all organic-this brand, this brand (pictured above), and this brand-and I have been able to find them in Whole Foods. If you are able to get to an Asian market or specialty store, check out the miso section.

Soy sauce/Tamari. Tamari is Japanese-style soy sauce that has little or no wheat. Therefore, tamari can be gluten-free, though not always. If you eat gluten-free, make sure to read labels. I use this organic gluten-free tamari. This brand is also great.

Maple Syrup. I use this organic maple syrup.

Dijon Mustard. This Dijon mustard brand has never failed me.

Garlic, ginger and any other fresh produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, Mar Vista Farmers Market on Sunday, or Whole Foods Market.

Is this the Trader Joe's Miso Crunch Salad Copycat?

How do you improve upon the perfection that is the Miso Crunch Salad from Trader Joe's? Its nutrient-dense kale, crisp cabbage, and of course that absolutely drinkable crunchy Miso Dressing? You don't, really, other than actually figuring out how to make it at home and of course most importantly, leaving out some of the unnecessary ingredients that store-bought salad need like emulsifiers and gums!

The salad can be made as an all vegetable salad, or with the addition shredded cooked rotisserie chicken to make it a meal, which is how I've always known and had it.

According to the USDA, an "average" cabbage weighs between 2 and 3 pounds.

This recipe calls for half a head, which equals:

• about 6 cups shredded
• 1½ pounds, or 24 ounces, of cabbage

However, any type of kale, curly green, lacinato, red, works for this salad, and Hillstone uses the curly green kind. The nutritional profiles across the types are generally fairly similar. Some varieties are milder in flavor than others, but in this kale salad recipe, the differences are not noticeable because of the flavors of the other ingredients, namely the dressing.

The Kale Salad in these photos is made with the darker green lacinato/Tuscan/dinosaur kale, which has long skinny, "bumpy" leaves. The reason I generally prefer this kind of kale in cooking applications is that it's just easier to wash. Sometimes you gotta just go with practicality.

Baby kale has the mildest flavor and tbh, I could eat this version of kale in a salad.

Instructions for How to Make the Asian Cabbage Salad (Trader Joe's Miso Crunch Dupe)

The hardest step in making this salad is washing the kale and cabbage. That's it. Otherwise, like most salads, there isn't much to the actual recipe than placing all the ingredients in a large bowl, drizzling with the dressing, and tossing until everything is well coated.

HOWEVER. As easy as any salad recipe is, there are a few tips and tricks along the way that will make this, or any, salad, the best salad of your life.

Pro Tips and Techniques for Asian Cabbage Crunch salad

1. Chop the cabbage and kale as small as possible. One of the reasons you don't like eating kale and cabbage in salads is that it's hard to eat. We're going to fix that in two ways, the first of which is chopping the cabbage and kale into the smallest pieces so you don't have to unhinge your jaw like a python to get a fistful of oversized airplane tarps into your mouth. Do I exaggerate to make a point? Yes, of course. Is it kind of true though? Also of course. Chop the kale small enough that you can eat it with a spoon. I'm serious.
2. Dress and massage the kale first. The second way we're making kale salad easy to eat is by massaging the tiny chopped kale-you did chop the kale into the tiniest of tiny pieces right?- with a few tablespoons of the dressing first. I used to cringe at the idea of "massaging kale" because I don't know why, but I totally get that physically breaking down the fibers in the leaves makes kale much much easier to eat.
3. Make double the amount of Miso Dressing. If you make enough Emerald Kale Salad to eat now, it will be crisp and crunchy like a salad. If you make enough to save some for later, the salad will marinate in the dressing and become ever so lightly pickled and it will be another flavor dimension.

Health and Nutrition Benefits of Asian Crunch Cabbage Salad

I am not a calorie counter. And you needn't be either. I am an anti-inflammation firefighter, so this recipe focuses on:

• anti-inflammatory ingredients
• nutrient-density

The brassicas, herbs, and dressing ingredients are high in phytonutrients that fight inflammation. The crunchy roasted salted cashews (and chow mein noodles if using) are what makes the salad craveable so that you want to eat all those good things, and miso in the dressing is a source of some gut-friendly fermentation, aka probiotics.

Dietary Preferences/Restrictions

• Gluten-free. Asian Cabbage Crunch Salad recipe can be gluten-free if you make sure to use gluten-free tamari (soy sauce) and omit the optional chow mein noodles
• Vegan. To make the salad vegan, leave out the optional rotisserie chicken or replace with a can of chickpeas.

Variations

I could eat this Asian Cabbage Crunch Salad every day exactly as is, straight out of the enormous stainless steel mixing bowl I use to mix the salad. And with a spoon, of course! And thank God we can make it at home, because we aren't about wasting more than $20 every day in the restaurant.

The original reason we made this salad at home was to use extra rotisserie chicken we had from overzealously buying at everyone's favorite bulk store, but the salad works perfectly as a starter or side salad without the chicken. If you want to change up the protein, here are some tried and true faves:

• cooked or smoked wild salmon broken up right into the salad as you're mixing the other ingredients together
• canned tuna, added the same way as above
• eggs, medium-boiled and cut into quarters. Little bits of cooked yolk will mix with the dressing and make it ever so slightly creamy.
• chickpeas, for a plant-based protein boost
• pasta, add a chickpea or other protein-power pasta and turn the salad in to a pasta salad

You can also use the Miso Dressing by itself in other ways:

• use it on the Cabbage Apple Salad and add a handful of chopped roasted salted peanuts
• Mandarin Chicken Salad
• Soba Salad
• stir the miso Dressing into hot, cooked grains or into pasta for a lighter in texture vs heavier cream- or mayo-based pasta salad
• toss the Miso Dressing with literally any other greens.

Best Cabbage-y, Kale-y Salads

If you go to the trouble of washing and chopping greens for the Asian Cabbage Crunch Salad, you might as well go the distance, and prep enough to make salads for several days. You can use those greens in these chopped salads:

• Hillstone Emerald Kale Salad
• Kale Salad with Roasted Peanut Dressing-Houston's dupe, which is similar to Hillstone, but different, iykyk
• Kale White Bean Salad, Erewhon Dupe
• Kale Tabbouleh Salad with Cherries
• Dill Pickle Chopped Salad with Kale and Cabbage
• Kale Caesar Salad with Avocado Caesar Dressing
• Vietnamese Chicken and Cabbage Salad
• Cabbage Apple Salad with Miso Mustard Dressing

How to Eat More Brassica/Cruciferous Vegetables

• Green Shakshuka with Kale
• Eggs Florentine with Kale
• Kale Slaw with Apple Cider Dressing
• Kale Pesto

Food for Afterthoughts

Nicolas Cage and a gorgeous starlet sidekick traipsing around the country with the Declaration of Independence, all to find a legendary treasure of historic proportions. On the coffee table, a large clear plastic disposable container, the lid pulled off and carefully thrown downside-up on the floor. No plates, not even paper, just eating ghetto-family-style right out of the container with the white plastic sporks that are okay to be so flimsy, because it was...salad. Too hot to turn on the stove, too disorganized to have vegetables from the weekend farmers' markets on hand, too lazy to go to the regular store and buy/wash/chop ingredients and make a salad at home, so we had resorted to the salad bar. And here is the confession I must make.

I love iceberg lettuce.

No vitamins, no minerals, no real redeeming nutritional qualities other than water and what Mom always used to tell us was "good for the gut," roughage.

Grocery store salad bars have saved my sanity many a hectic weekday evening in years past, but the problem is, what once used to be relatively inexpensive greens and vegetables now cost as much as prepared hot foods. It was Econ 1 that I had to take twice to pass that taught me the law of supply and demand. No one wants to eat the heart-attack in a picnic basket: 8-pieces of golden fried chicken with mayo-slaw, mac n cheese, and mashed butter with a bit of potato, even if it feeds the whole gang for under six bucks.

So now lighter lifestyles ring up the salad bar at a hefty $14.99 per pound, which doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised at how much lettuce weighs. Mesclun, maybe a little less, but Romaine? Forget it. Even when you punch in your telephone number for that jungle discount, you're going to have to break out the platinum card because membership savings don't apply to the salad bar. And if you're half-way to bourgie and frequent the over-rated McOrganic market (because if you were all the way to bourgie, your personal chef would be doing all of this, and now that I think about it, they wouldn't even be at the bar to begin with), you can expect to pay close to a single Japanese strawberry for a good salad iykyk, yk?

The pain comes more, though, from the salad itself: the variety (or lack of) at the bar and the freshness and quality of each of the items. The best salad bars offer a multitude of greens, from my favorite iceberg all the way to...pseudo-mesclun. The market salad bar of choice for our bingeathon shall remain nameless for now to save me from embarrassment, but if you must know, it's someone's name that rhymes with malphs. Their salad bar has Romaine chopped too big to eat politely, a smaller bowl with sometimes baby spinach, sometimes random mixed baby greens, and iceberg that's mixed with stupid things like slivered carrots, which are such a waste because inevitably, the curled, dried, cracked things never get eaten. Either the carrots never make it into your plastic container in the first place because they drop right out of the spring-loaded tongs into salad bar limbo, the crushed ice neverland between the bowl and the silver railed edge along which you slide your container; or the shreds simply descend to the bottom of your salad bowl back at home and drown because who wants to fish those slippery little things out of the water-swirled-with-dressing dregs? *gross*

As you move down the bar, the vegetables are either flashy or fresh. Flashy are the accessories like pickled beets, various beans, artichokes, olives, and if it's fancy, maybe hearts of palm. It's all the stuff that comes from cans and bottles. Fresh are the basics like tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, bell peppers, sliced fresh mushrooms, etc. etc. etc. Every salad bar is the same when it comes to this stuff, and I pretty much take one of everything. Except the beans. For some reason, no matter where I am, the beans, whether garbanzo or kidney or whatever other sort of salad bean there is, always look slimy. Not shiny, but slimy.

Then comes that which separates the salad bars from...the salad bars. I can't get by without protein, and usually, there's krab, tuna that looks suspiciously like Friskies, hard boiled eggs that almost always have bonus green tinge on the yolks, and if you're lucky, chicken, that looks like the tuna, Jessica. This is where sometimes I wish were further up the corporate ladder and could afford McOrganic markets, because they do better by throwing various marinated tofu as well as egg-whites-only into the protein mix. I am but a drone, so at the market that rhymes with malphs, I stick to krab. Don't get greedy here - if you came away with anything at all from those silly diet programs, it's that muscle weighs more than fat, and dressing alone, especially of the cream kind even if it's "lite," could add a whole 4 ounces to the final receipt. And dammit, if we're really counting, to your waistline as well ;)

Yes, yes dammit, we're counting pennies now, because even though I work so hard that I hardly have time to cook at home, it's still barely enough cashflow for the generic salad bar.

The movie was only so-so, but along with Anthony Bourdain, Nicolas Cage falls into my dream-fantasy crush category, so I enjoyed it. The salad? Not bad either, even though it takes a national treasure to pay for sporks and krab.