Shredded cabbage and kale, shrimp, avocado, cilantro and chili-flavored peanuts, and the perfect sweet miso dressing.
Miso Crunch Salad
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Made this tonight and my husband who doesn’t think a salad is a meal ate the whole bowl and said he ate all of the kale and loved the salad. It is a winner!
Sarah
This is a brand new recipe that’s part of our Spring 2023 SOS Series – in other words, EASY recipes! View our full collection of SOS recipes here.
In This Post: Everything You Need For Miso Crunch Salad
Lindsay’s Notes
Cabbage, kale, shrimp, cilantro, peanuts, and creamy sweet miso dressing… I could eat this every day for lunch and be happy with my life. (And by could, I mean I currently am.)
We were actually planning to publish this later in the SOS Series, but I could not wait to get this into your hands because I’m so obsessed with it. So here she is, making an early entrance! This salad is so perfect for these early days of spring / summer when it’s starting to warm up and the grass is turning green again and the body is just feeling aggressively ready for salads.
So many of these salad ingredients are easy to buy pre-made / pre-ready to eat (I get a lot of them at Trader Joe’s):
- pre-shredded cabbage
- pre-chopped kale
- cooked shrimp
- chili onion peanuts
And this miso dressing can be blitzed up in about two minutes. It is creamy, sweet, springy, delicate, and just very life-giving. Just a little bit of garlic, but not overpowering, and the punch from the lime is the most delicious little jolt of wake-me-up energy that you want in a salad.
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Miso Crunch Salad
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
This Miso Crunch Salad is made for springtime! Major crunch for veggies like cabbage and kale, a tiny bite of heat from chili-flavored peanuts, chilled shrimp, and the perfect sweet miso dressing.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Miso Dressing:
- 1/3 cup avocado oil
- 1/3 cup lime juice (4-6 limes)
- 1/4 cup white miso
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Miso Crunch Salad:
- 1 lb. cooked shrimp, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 5 cups shredded Tuscan kale
- 5 cups shredded green cabbage
- 1 cup chili-flavored peanuts (or something similar)
- 2 avocados
- 1/2 cup sliced green onions
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Shake all dressing ingredients in a jar, or blend together in a small food processor (affiliate link) until smooth. If it’s on the thicker side, add a bit of water until it pours smoothly off the end of a spoon.
- Toss all salad ingredients with dressing! You can do this as a large batch (serves 4-6) or prep the elements and store them separately to make the salads one at a time for individual lunches and dinners throughout the week, which is what I usually do! Crunchy, sweet, delicate, and fresh!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Salad
- Method: Chop
- Cuisine: Asian-Inspired
Keywords: miso salad, shrimp salad, salad recipe
What Is Miso?
Miso is a fermented soybean paste that is used in Japanese cooking.
You can buy multiple varieties of miso – yellow, red, and white are the three I’m most familiar with. The one I’m using here and the one I’d recommend is white miso, which is very mild and almost sweet. It has a more delicate and nuanced flavor, which is so perfect in this salad.
I usually find it in the produce section of the grocery store, near the tofu!
What To Use Instead Of Miso?
Tahini could be a good substitute! It’s similarly creamy, but it’s less salty, so if you do use tahini (in equal proportions to the miso), I would recommend seasoning the dressing with extra salt or even a shot of soy sauce.
Other Protein Options?
Rotisserie chicken is great in this salad! I’ve done it many times.
Can It Be Vegan / Vegetarian?
Edamame is a great veg protein that I love throwing into this salad!
Any Other Veggies?
I have enjoyed spinach (in place of the kale), and finely chopped broccoli, cucumber, and bell pepper.
Making This Nut-Free?
You could use sunflower seeds (that’s what the Churchill Street miso crunch salad uses!) or wonton strips instead of the nuts!
How To Keep Leftovers?
The salad is best within the first 15-30 minutes after tossing it together! The greens and cabbage will start to lose some of their crunch after they sit in the dressing for a while. So if you’re serving it to a group, just toss it up, serve it fresh, and have everybody eat as much as possible. 🙂
On the other hand, if you’re eating this one serving at a time, it works really well to prep everything (dressing, shrimp, peanuts, cilantro, and greens) and have those elements in the fridge so you can throw this together as individual lunch portions throughout the week.
Make It Even Easier?
I can confirm that this is delicious with just a store-bought Asian-style dressing that is pumped up with some extra salt, extra sugar, and maybe even a spoonful of white miso. Kind of a hybrid homemade miso dressing, ya know? I made it the hybrid way for an Easter get-together and everyone raved about it!
Source Notes
This salad is a cousin to the avocado shrimp salad from years ago! The 2023 version – the one you see here – is more like a slaw, which I am totally loving! And the dressing skips the ginger.
I saw a Miso Crunch Salad on the menu at a restaurant near us called Churchill Street, and I wanted to replicate it, which is where this idea came from!
More Springy Salads To Make
- Lemongrass Vermicelli Salad (a salad with noodles? yes, please!)
- Corn, Avocado, and Quinoa Salad with Marinated Tomatoes (for real, do not sleep on the marinated tomatoes)
- Napa Chicken Salad with Sesame Dressing (this dressing is a dream!)
- Cashew Crunch Salad with Sesame Dressing (when you need more salad crunch in your life)
- Super Quick Avocado Shrimp Salad (ultra fast to prep)
Filed Under: All Recipes Avocado Dairy-Free Dinner Gluten-Free Kale Lime Lunch Main Dishes Meal Prep Quick and Easy Recipes Salads SOS Series Spring Summer
April 24, 2023
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
Did you make a recipe? Tag @pinchofyum on Instagram so we can find you!
I love Churchill St! We were just there last Thursday and when I saw the recipe title in your email, I had to see if it was a similar version – so excited to try this!
can you offer a sugar alternative choice and how much to use. Thank you.
You can use Stevia in the same amount as sugar.
Hi! You can try a natural sweetener like maple syrup and use 1/4 cup. Hope you love this salad as much as we do!
OMG this is soooooooo delicious!!! LOVE your recipes.
Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Can you use agave or maple syrup in place of sugar and how much?
Thank you!
Hi, Heather! Thanks for your question. We haven’t tried agave or maple syrup in place of sugar here yet, but we’d guess it would work! We would recommend equal amounts of either – so for this recipe, 1/4 cup agave or 1/4 cup maple syrup.
Looks delicious! The grocery store I have access to only carries yellow miso. Could I use less so it’s not too strong? Or is yellow miso better for cooking and I should substitute with tahini like in the notes? Thanks!
Hi, Esther! We haven’t tried this with yellow miso before to know how things would turn out. You could try tahini just to be safe. If you end up trying yellow miso though, we’d love to hear!
I used yellow miso because that’s what I had and it turned out great!
Another winner! Thanks Lindsay. I love this salad because I can dress it and eat it for days- the greens don’t wilt.
I replaced the sugar with a shot glass of honey and I left out the salt. Yum!
Delicious! I served it with quinoa and tofu (instead of shrimp) and it made such a quick, easy, and satisfying dinner.
Made this tonight and my husband who doesn’t think a salad is a meal ate the whole bowl and said he ate all of the kale and loved the salad. It is a winner!
OMG this looks so good! This is exactly what I needed this week!
Delicious! We did it with smoked salmon and chili flavored roasted chickpeas, the dressing is so so good!
This salad was great! My husband is not normally a fan of kale salads and he loved it. The dressing softens the bite of kale. Will definitely be making again
Obsessed with this salad! I’m always looking for new homemade dressings and this one is amazing. The combination of all the ingredients is super delicious!
Made this tonight – my whole family loved it! Great flavors – we added chow mein noodles for extra crunch, so yummy. Great recipe as always, thanks Lindsay!
Another keeper! I made this as written with shrimp and avocado, but kept the dressing off so I could eat it again and again 2 days later.
Excellent tasting “feel good” salad. This will become part of my go-to rotation.
I have to comment because I was so excited to try this as soon as it landed in my inbox and made it pretty much the same day. But because Mercury is retrograde and my brain is a mess these days, I read miso but my brain translated that to tahini. Why would I do this when the title is so obviously miso and the recipe asks for miso? I have no idea! But I’m commenting because OH MY WORD! It’s so good with tahini! So good that I’ve made it again—incorrectly. I will definitely try it with miso, I just wanted to leave a comment in case someone has tahini in their fridge but not miso. I also used coconut sugar instead of white sugar and it was delicious.
I swear I usually make Pinch of Yum recipes as stated—just not during Mercury retrograde, apparently.
Thank you so much for this recipe. It was super forgiving as our grocery store didn’t have some of the ingredients. I used a store bought miso vinaigrette and fried shallots in place of chili peanuts and it was still delicious. Can’t wait to try the recipe as written next!
hi pinchofyum.
i really enjoyed learning about how to make miso Crunch Salad. i think this is very informative and also very healthy as food. i like the avocado and peanut i am seeing in it.
great work!
This recipe looks delicious!
I just bought some miso so I’ll be able to try it soon….
Thanks!
This was so delicious!! Make the dressing for sure and then be flexible with what you have and like for the salad but it’s fantastic as written. Another hit!
So easy to make, refreshing and unique! Definitely adding to my rotation
Delicious! Subbed crispy baked tofu for shrimp. Even my 4 year old loved it
Wow!! This salad is an explosion of amazing flavor in your mouth! Made it exactly per the recipe, and it is truly a keeper! Just perfect for a warm spring dinner outside.
Loved it!
I almost cried it was so good.
This is the first recipe I’ve ever commented on. I’m an avid cook and my husband said this is the best salad he has ever had. Have been sending it to all my friends and family. Thank you!