Cabbage Apple Salad with Miso Mustard, Yes You Can Have a GREAT Salad in Fall

Cabbage Apple Salad with Miso Mustard Dressing is the spicy, salty, tangy, and naturally sweet side dish you will not be able to stop making and eating. With only a few ingredients, and obviously no cooking, this recipe is too simple and quick! Shall we?

Jump to:

• What is Cabbage Apple Salad?
• What Ingredients You Need for Cabbage Apple Salad
• How Much Cabbage is 1 Cup?
• What's the Best Way to Shred Cabbage for Salad?
• Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
• Ingredients Substitutions and FAQs
• Cabbage Apple Salad with Miso Mustard Dressing

What is Cabbage Apple Salad?

This Cabbage Apple... Salad? Or is it a slaw? Whatever you call it, it's a combination of crunchy cabbage, crispy sweet apples, angel fine julienned carrots, and a supremely saucy dressing that's subtly spicy, salty, and most importantly, oozing umami. I wasn't kidding when I said this Cabbage Apple Salad is my current hyperfixation, one of like, oh, three dishes I make on. the. daily. At first it's fresh and crunchy like a slaw, and the longer you let it sit in the miso-y, mustardy dressing, it becomes just ever so slightly pickled.

Eat Cabbage Apple Salad as you would any other super flavorful salad or slaw. It also works as a main dish salad when you toss is some shredded chicken or julienned firm tofu.

Is Cabbage Apple Salad Healthy?

Depending on your health needs and dietary considerations, Cabbage Apple Salad is healthy! To be honest, I can't really think of a case in which the Cabbage Apple Salad would not be healthy, unless maybe spice or acid from vinegar causes heartburn or other gastric issue for you.

Let's break down some of the nutritional highlights, starting with the most underrated nutrition hero, cabbage:

Cabbage, which is a member of the famously healthy broccoli/Brussels/kale family, provides:

• fiber in both soluble and insoluble forms that support good gut health, decreases cholesterol, and lowers blood sugar
• antioxidants most notably in the form of sulforaphane that fight inflammation
• vitamin C, 56% of the recommended daily intake in 1 cup of red cabbage

Carrots are a non-starchy vegetable that provides a number of nutritional benefits like:

• beta carotene which converts into vitamin A in the body
• additional antioxidants, primarily in the form of carotenoids and anthocyanins
• both soluble and insoluble fiber

Dietary Considerations of Cabbage Apple Salad

As published, this recipe for Cabbage Apple Salad is:

• 100% plant-based, suitable for vegans
• vegetarian
• dairy-free
• gluten-free/wheat-free
• grain-free
• refined sugar-free
• anti-inflammatory

This recipe for Cabbage Apple Salad is keto-/paleo-/Whole30-adaptable with easy substitutions.

What Ingredients You Need for Cabbage Apple Salad

If you've spent some time around here and made some of the recipes, then you more than likely already have the pantry ingredients. If not, they're some of the easier ones to find at the grocery store.

Cabbage Apple Salad ingredients:

• green and/or red cabbage, 6 cups finely shredded
• apple, 1 large, I love Honeycrisp for this salad
• carrots, 1 cup finely shredded

Miso Mustard Dressing for Cabbage Apple Salad:

• miso, 4 tablespoons
• Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons
• garlic, 1 clove finely minced
• apple cider vinegar, ¼ cup
• olive oil, ¼ cup

Maple syrup, about 1 tablespoon, is an option if you like your salads a little on the sweeter side, or if your apple is a particularly tart variety like Granny Smith.

How Much Cabbage is 1 Cup?

Because cabbages come in so many different sizes and shapes like so many um, other things, it's better to "measure" cabbage by cups, not by heads or wedges.

According to research, one medium cabbage weighs about 2 pounds, but have you seen cabbages in grocery stores in say, the last 5 years? Grocery store cabbages have gotten bigger, and the average cabbage based on my own experience weighs more like 3 to 4 pounds and yields about 8 cups of firmly packed shredded cabbage. So you need a total of about half a cabbage for this salad.

This recipe is a salad though, not precision baking, though so it's ok to come close enough with the amount of cabbage.

You will more than likely become hyper-fixated/obsessed/addicted to the Cabbage Apple Salad, so don't worry about what you're going to do with an entire head of cabbage, t r u s t.

What's the Best Way to Shred Cabbage for Salad?

The best way to slice or shred cabbage for Cabbage Apple Salad is running wedges on either on a mandoline (quicker) or using a sharp knife on a stable cutting board (slower).

What's the Best Way to Shred Carrots for Salad?

The best way to cut carrots for Cabbage Apple Salad is to finely julienne into thin matchsticks either on a mandoline (quicker) or using a sharp knife on a stable cutting board (slower). Pictured above, it's the bottom pile of carrots.

If you only have a box grater, you can shred the carrots on the largest holes. The smaller holes will make the carrot shreds too thin and fragile.

Dressing Ingredients Notes and Resources

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 Markets in southern California.

Dijon Mustard. This Dijon mustard brand has never failed me. The mustard adds some degree of flavor, but more importantly, emulsifies the rest of the ingredients into one homogenous mixture.

Apple Cider Vinegar. Any brand of apple cider vinegar "ACV" works as long as it has the "mother," i.e. the little cloud floating inside. The mother is what causes the fermentation and is partially what makes this salad good for the gut. This generic store brand of organic Apple Cider Vinegar is generally the most affordable where I shop. This is the well-known apple cider vinegar brand that's available everywhere. You can substitute up to half the apple cider vinegar with fresh lemon juice for additional layer of flavor and sweetness.

Olive Oil. Use the highest quality extra virgin olive oil you can afford, preferably with a recent Harvest Date on the bottle, not just the Expiration Date. I used a limited production boutique brand of organic California olive oil for this recipe. This is a more widely available high quality olive oil that I use for every day cooking.

Onions, garlic, and all other fresh herbs and produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, or Whole Foods Market.

Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Double, triple, or even quadruple the Miso Mustard Dressing. The amount of ingredients for Miso Mustard Dressing makes about 1 cup, which fits this specific recipe for Cabbage Apple Salad. But I highly recommend scaling up to make triple the amount of the dressing! Use the amount you need for the Cabbage Apple Salad, then store the rest in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator. The sauce is great as an all-purpose spicy dressing over greens, grains, or even dip for fresh vegetables! Add some chopped scallions for some color and an extra layer of flavor.

Rainbow carrots make it fun. If you want to add some more color to your dinner table, use rainbow carrots for this Spicy Carrot Salad. Different colored carrots do taste different from one another, but the difference is so subtle, you'd probably only be able to tell the difference if you tasted them totally raw side-by-side, and that's if you had a pretty sensitive palate. The different colors also have different antioxidant profiles, since different antioxidants render different pigment colors in vegetables!

Make double the amount of Cabbage Apple Salad. If you make enough Cabbage Apple Salad to eat now, it will be crisp and crunchy like a salad. If you make enough to save some for later, the Cabbage Apple Salad will marinate in the sauce and become ever so lightly pickled and it will be another flavor dimension.

Ingredients Substitutions and FAQs

If you have trouble finding any of the ingredients for this recipe, here are some suggested substitutions and variations:

• Any sturdy leafy vegetable for cabbage. If you hyperfixate on this Cabbage Apple Salad like me eventually eat up all your cabbage, substitute in an equivalent amount of finely shredded Tuscan kale, the kind that looks like long, dark forest green bumpy leaves, shredded Brussels sprouts, or even shaved cauliflower. Or any combination of these!
• Other vinegar for Apple Cider Vinegar. If you don't have apple cider vinegar, use any mild-ish vinegar like rice vinegar or white wine vinegar. You can even use lemon or lime juice, though you may have to increase the amount to get the same level of acidity. If you only have plain distilled vinegar, which is much sharper than the others, cut the intensity by using only half the amount and adding half lemon juice.

Advance Prep, Leftovers, and Storage

Advance Prep

You can prep everything for Cabbage Apple Salad up to three days in advance except for the apples, which you should add just before tossing with dressing and serving so they don't break down too much or turn brown. Depending on how "fresh" you want it to taste when you eat it, you can either:

• Prep and store the shredded cabbage in an air-tight zipper top bag or container, make the dressing and store separately in an air-tight glass mason jar or container, and combine the two and freshly cut apple just before serving for the crispest crunchiest freshest flavor, or
• Make the Cabbage Apple Salad without the apple, and store the fully dressed salad, which will marinate and become slightly pickled over a few days, and add sliced apples just before serving.

Leftovers

Store any leftover Cabbage Apple Salad that has already been mixed with dressing in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 day, though the cabbage and carrots will begin to soften and become slightly pickled in the dressing as mentioned above. The apples will begin to oxidize but they will be fine to eat.

Freezing

Cabbage Apple Salad recipe does not freeze.

Tools and Equipment

There isn't any special tool or piece of equipment that is absolutely required for this Cabbage Apple Salad. You can make it using a sharp chef's knife on a sturdy cutting board to shred the cabbage and julienne the carrots! However, that isn't to say there are a few tools that might make it slightly easier to get the Cabbage Apple Salad from the farmers market to your fork (or chopsticks), namely a mandoline or slicing attachment on your food processor!

• Japanese mandoline, for faster uniform slicing
• regular mandoline with storage container
• Chef's knife, my personal workhorse
• Wooden cutting board, oversized
• Glass mixing bowls 
• Mini ¼-cup liquid measuring cup
• Mini whisk
• Glass storage container with airtight lids, perfect size for storing prepped cabbage and carrots you make it in advance
• Glass mason jars, wide mouth because they're easier to use and wash
• Mason jar lids that are better than those horrible 2-piece metal lids

Food for Afterthoughts

It’s been a very long time since I’ve cooked, but I finally got myself into the kitchen and made...

...a salad!

F**k me. I know tossing things into a bowl with dressing isn’t “cooking” but I’m trying not to shock my system here.

Cooked

Really though, it’s been so long that I can’t remember the last time I was in the kitchen making enough of a mess that would legally qualify as the result of “cooking” (except to fake my way through cupcakes, and since we’re being technical, “faking” is nowhere near baking, which is, in turn, a measured go in a chemistry lab, not cooking). I might have heated a can of soup in a moment of desperation. I’ve blended together smoothies. Poured wine. Mixed cocktails. I mean really, does filling my Brita pitcher to “make water” count as “cooking?”

There’s a theme here, though I can’t quite put my liquiholic finger on it, can you?

Pent Up House

When I figure it out, I’ll let the world know, but until then, I’ll be making my way through a bowl of what will now take a permanent place in my personal recipe repository as Spring Green Crunch Salad, which is similar to, but not to be confused with the Green Crunch Salad that was so unabashedly the only thing out of the kitchen at The Penthouse that was, indeed, edible.

The Penthouse’s cheese plate doesn’t count, since last I checked, it is cows and other certain hooved animals, with the help of their cheese-making owners, that “make” cheese, not cooks. And if we’re going to crucify me for claiming to cook because I threw together a salad, then I can, by parallelogistical (I made that up) comparison say that The Penthouse didn’t even cook the one thing that was decent either, thereby making it safe to conclude that The Penthouse can’t cook real food that requires real cooking.

Ooh! Ouch! I bet that one stung!

Yes, I made a salad and I wasn’t creative enough to make one up on my own, but I’d really just like to focus on the positive point here: I made something. That’s a lovely first step, and by the time I get to the 12th, I’ll be serving seared foie gras with truffle espuma atop risotto flecked with caviar.

Right.