Monday, March 5, 2012

Copy Cat: Applebee's Oriental Chicken Wrap

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I'm not terribly in love with restaurants like Applebee's.  The concept is okay, but the food is generally mediocre. You can tell the dish could have been good, you know, if it had been prepared from scratch not from a series of re-heated food items that were assembled by a hurried "cook."  Anyway, a while ago I found a dressing recipe that was supposed to taste exactly like the dressing used in the Oriental Chicken Salad... and it does!  This site has a recipe for the whole thing: salad, fried chicken, and dressing. I made ours into wraps tonight and made a few changes (of course!).  They were so good! Tasted even better than the ones in the restaurant!



Dressing:
3 Tbsp. honey
1 1/2 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar (*tonight I used plain rice vinegar and it was fine)
1/4 cup mayo (*you can use low fat, but don't use Miracle Whip)
1 tsp. dijon dressing (*I've also used honey mustard in a bind)
1/8 tsp. sesame oil (*a teeny amount, but very necessary!)

Wisk ingredients until smooth and set aside.

The Salad:
3 cups romaine lettuce
2 cups coleslaw mix
1/2 carrot julienned or shredded (*skip this if it's in your coleslaw mix)
1 green onion, chopped (*I used 3 because they were starting to get wilty)
1 Tbsp cilantro (optional)

1 Tbsp. sliced almonds
1/3 cup chow mien noodles (*I found really thin ones [called "Asian noodles] in the ethnic aisle)

The Chicken?
You could grill/cook a chicken breast and chop it up. You could whip up some chicken tenders from scratch or frozen, or you can do what I did: use a rotisserie chicken from the store!

Assembly
I made wraps and used La Tortilla Factory Whole Wheat (100 calories) tortillas (love these, by the way). So you lay the tortilla on a plate, pile a cup or so of lettuce mixture, add a handful or chicken (about 1/3 cup), sprinkle the almonds and chow mien noodles over the top.  Then drizzle over a fair amount of dressing. Wrap it up ever so carefully (you're on your own with this!) and ENJOY!

Obviously you can enjoy this as a salad too!


A Side Dish
As a side, we had Terra brand Sweet Potato chips and a I made a dipping sauce (for the chips) by combining:
1/2 cup mayo (the real stuff)
1 Tbsp. Sriracha sauce
1 garlic clove, pressed (or finely minced)

*By the way, this sauce is also amazing with sweet potato fries!

Happy eating!

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