Bok Choy Salad with Chinese Salad Dressing ♥

Today's salad recipe: A quick salad made with raw bok choy, tossed in a strong-flavored dressing of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey, cayenne and sesame seeds. Low carb. Weight Watchers 1 point.

Salad is for wimps, right? So goes the sentiment I still hear occasionally, the one where "real men" eat meat and "the ladies" eat salad. Ha. Whoever thinks that way (not that they're likely reading, but bear with me ...) should try this bok choy salad. Talk about flavor, both from the bok choy's pepper-y bite and the salad dressing's in-your-face flavor.

This is a hearty salad all by itself but by adding other ingredients, snowpeas, bean sprouts, cucumber, perhaps a creamy cheese to contrast, it would make a great supper salad. I wouldn't recommend the dressing for a tender lettuce -- it would likely overwhelm -- but think the dressing would be good tossed into steamed greens like mustard or leafy spinach (not baby spinach which is too tender for steaming) that's next on my list with the leftover dressing.

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MORE BOK CHOY RECIPES from the ARCHIVES
~ Bok Choy Salad with Homemade Creamy Vinaigrette ~
~ Soy-Glazed Bok Choy ~
~ Weight Watchers Asian Zero Points Soup ~

~ still more bok choy recipes ~
~ more Weight Watchers recipes ~
~ more low-carb recipes ~

BOK CHOY SALAD with CHINESE SALAD DRESSING

Hands-on time: 10 minutes for dressing, 5 minutes for salad
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 4

DRESSING
Note: I used about half the dressing on a pound of bok choy.

1 tablespoon garlic (or garlic to taste, I used garlic from a jar which is some milder)
1 tablespoon ginger (or ginger to taste, I used ginger from a jar from an international market)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Juice of a lemon
1 tablespoon honey (or agave syrup for a vegan salad)
1 tablespoon sesame seeds (I used black sesame seeds)
Generous dash of cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (a little goes a long way)
Peanut oil to taste (I used just 1 tablespoon and was tempted to use none at all, any oil will work but we needn't waste our best olive oil since the other dressing flavors are strong)

Whisk.

ASSEMBLE
1 pound bok choy (for St. Louisans, mine came from Centennial Farms at Tower Grove Farmers Market)

Wash well and trim. Chop the stems into bite size pieces, then the greens. Toss with the salad dressing, just enough to wet.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Using half the dressing for a pound of bok choy, Per Serving: 52 Cal (43% from Fat, 15% from Protein, 42% from Carb); 2 g Protein; 3 g Tot Fat; 0 g Sat Fat; 2 g Mono Fat; 6 g Carb; 1 g Fiber; NetCarb5; 2 g Sugar; 135 mg Calcium; 1 mg Iron; 228 mg Sodium; 0 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 1 point

TODAY'S VEGETABLE RECIPE INSPIRATION
Dressing adapted from The American Vegetarian Cookbook from the Fit for Life Kitchen by Marilyn Diamond, which was my first (and for the longest time, only) vegetarian cookbook. How it's never reached A Veggie Venture's pages before is incomprehensible. It's filled with notes, "Great" and "We loved this" and "Make this again". More later, I promise.

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