Vietnamese-style chicken slaw that actually holds together

Poach the chicken properly and this dish looks after itself. Rush it, boil it hard, and you get grey, stringy meat sitting on top of good cabbage, which is a genuine waste of a Sunday afternoon. I’ve made a version of this slaw more times than I can count, first in a restaurant kitchen near Maitland Road in Islington where we did it as a bar snack, and now most weeks at home when the fridge is full of vegetables and I can’t be bothered with anything heavy.

This is a proper Vietnamese-style chicken slaw, built the way I’d build it if you were paying for it: poached chicken, a dressing you actually taste as you go, and cabbage cut thin enough to hold dressing without turning to soup. Vegetable-forward, light enough for a Tuesday, and it keeps you full because there’s protein in there doing real work, not just garnish.

Why poaching beats grilling here

Grilled chicken is dry chicken more often than not, and dry chicken in a cold salad is unforgiving. Poaching in stock with ginger, a smashed garlic clove and a stick of lemongrass keeps the meat moist right through, and you get a decent stock out of the deal too, which I freeze for later. Don’t muck about with poaching chicken breast at a rolling boil — bring the liquid to a bare simmer, drop the heat right back, and let the residual heat finish the job with the lid on. Ten minutes simmering, twenty minutes resting off the heat for a standard breast, and it’s done through without being tough.

If you’re short on time, a barbecue chook from the shops will do the trick, and honestly there’s no shame in it for a Wednesday lunch. I’d never serve it that way at a table I was cooking for properly, but home is home.

Getting the cabbage right

Get your pan properly hot for the roasted peanuts, and get your knife properly sharp for the cabbage — that’s the whole trick of this dish. Thin, even shreds of wombok and red cabbage hold their crunch and take on dressing evenly. Thick wedges just sit there wet and unseasoned in the middle. A mandoline makes this fast if you’ve got a steady hand and a guard you actually use; otherwise a sharp chef’s knife and a bit of patience gets you there.

Salt the cabbage lightly and let it sit in a colander for ten minutes before you dress it. This draws out a bit of moisture so your dressing doesn’t get diluted and watery, which is the single biggest reason slaws go soggy on a share table.

The dressing does the heavy lifting

Nuoc cham is fish sauce, lime, sugar, garlic and chilli in rough balance, and every Vietnamese cook I’ve ever spoken to has their own ratio. Mine leans a bit more sour than sweet. Taste as you go — start with the fish sauce and lime in equal parts, add sugar until it rounds out, then chilli to your own heat tolerance. If it tastes flat, it usually needs more lime, not more sugar. That’s a mistake I made for years in the pass, over-correcting sweetness when the fix was acid.

Ingredients

• 2 skinless chicken breasts (about 400g)
• 1 litre chicken stock, or water with a stock cube if that’s what’s in the cupboard
• 1 stick lemongrass, bruised and halved
• 3cm piece ginger, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1/4 wombok (Chinese cabbage), very finely shredded
• 1/4 red cabbage, very finely shredded
• 2 carrots, julienned or grated
• 1 continental cucumber, halved and thinly sliced
• 4 spring onions, sliced on the angle
• 1 cup mint leaves, torn
• 1 cup Vietnamese mint or coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp fried shallots (optional, from the Asian grocer)
• 1 long red chilli, thinly sliced, for garnish
• For the nuoc cham dressing:
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 cup lime juice (2-3 limes)
• 2 tbsp brown sugar or grated palm sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1-2 small red chillies, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp warm water, to loosen

Method

1. Place the chicken breasts, stock, lemongrass, ginger and smashed garlic in a saucepan. Bring to a bare simmer over medium heat, then drop the heat to low. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat, cover, and leave the chicken to finish poaching in the residual heat for 20 minutes.
2. Remove the chicken, reserve the stock for another use, and shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces once it’s cool enough to handle.
3. Toss the shredded wombok and red cabbage with a good pinch of salt in a colander. Let it sit over the sink for 10 minutes, then pat dry with a clean tea towel.
4. Make the dressing by whisking together the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, minced garlic and chopped chilli. Add the warm water gradually until the sugar dissolves fully. Taste and adjust — more lime if flat, more sugar if too sharp, more fish sauce if it needs backbone.
5. In a large bowl, combine the salted cabbage, carrot, cucumber and spring onion. Add the shredded chicken.
6. Pour over the dressing and toss well with your hands or tongs, making sure everything’s coated evenly.
7. Fold through most of the mint and Vietnamese mint, reserving a small handful for garnish.
8. Pile onto a large platter or into bowls. Scatter over the peanuts, fried shallots, sliced chilli and reserved herbs. Serve immediately while the cabbage still has its crunch.

Serves: 4 as a light main, 6 as a side

A serving idea worth stealing

I like this piled into lettuce cups for a lighter lunch spread, especially in the warmer months when nobody wants anything heavy at midday. It also sits well next to something like aromatic spiced rice with quinoa and chicken if you’ve got hungrier mouths to feed, or on its own with a squeeze of extra lime and a cold drink. If you’re building out a proper spread of vegetable-forward dishes, this sits nicely alongside a chickpea and roast capsicum salad for contrast in texture.

The variation I’d actually recommend

Swap the chicken for poached prawns if you want something lighter again, or leave the protein out entirely and double the peanuts for a vegetarian version that still has substance. I’ve also done this with leftover roast pork on a Boxing Day when nobody wants another hot meal, and it works just as well. What I wouldn’t do is bottled dressing from the supermarket — it’s flat, oversweet, and it undoes all the good work you’ve put into the cabbage.

Why this earns a spot in the weekly rotation

Cabbage and carrots hold their nutrients and their crunch better than most greens once dressed, which makes this a genuinely practical lunch to prep ahead — dress it just before eating, though, not the night before. The Australian Dietary Guidelines put a fair bit of weight on vegetable variety across the week, and a dish like this gets you three or four different vegetables in one bowl without any of them tasting like health food. There’s decent detail on fish sauce and fermented condiments generally, and their place in a balanced diet, over at Nutrition Australia if you want to read further on that.

If you’re after something similarly bright and crunchy, the green papaya and chicken salad we ran a while back uses a similar dressing base, and the shaved fennel and orange salad is worth a look too if citrus and crunch is your thing this time of year. I picked up a decent bag of Vietnamese mint at the Newcastle Farmers Market last time I was through, and it’s worth seeking out over standard mint if your grocer stocks it — the aniseed note through the slaw is worth the extra trip.

— Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen