Thai Salad with Chicken
The peanut dressing looks like the part you could skip. Cut the calories, keep the salad. But that dressing is doing something the salad can't do without it.
This bowl is built on 140 grams of raw shredded carrot, spiralized zucchini, sliced bell pepper, and red onion, with a pan-cooked chicken breast and two slices of whole wheat bread on the side. It lands at 39g of protein, 14g of fiber, and 663 calories. Raw, fast, no oven.
The dressing whisks together from peanut butter, a splash of milk, teriyaki, and Sriracha. It reads as flavor. It's also the fat that lets your body absorb the carrot's beta-carotene, and that turns out to matter more than it sounds.
The peanut dressing looks like the part you could skip. Cut the calories, keep the salad. But that dressing is doing something the salad can't do without it.
This bowl is built on 140 grams of raw shredded carrot, spiralized zucchini, sliced bell pepper, and red onion, with a pan-cooked chicken breast and two slices of whole wheat bread on the side. It lands at 39g of protein, 14g of fiber, and 663 calories. Raw, fast, no oven.
The dressing whisks together from peanut butter, a splash of milk, teriyaki, and Sriracha. It reads as flavor. It's also the fat that lets your body absorb the carrot's beta-carotene, and that turns out to matter more than it sounds.
Ingredients
- chicken breast 3 ounces
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- zucchini 1
- bell pepper 1
- red onion 0.25
- carrot, shredded 5 ounces
- peanut butter 1 tablespoon
- milk, 2% reduced fat 1.5 fluid ounces
- teriyaki sauce 1 tablespoon
- Sriracha sauce 0.5 teaspoon
- bread, whole wheat 2 slices
Method
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Season the chicken breast with some pepper and salt.
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Heat the oil in a pan and cook the chicken breast until done.
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Meanwhile, use a spiralizer to make spaghetti from the zucchini. Slice the bell pepper into thin strips. Finely chop the onion. Mix these vegetables together in a bowl, then add the carrot.
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Make a dressing from the peanut butter, milk, teriyaki sauce, and Sriracha.
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Serve the salad with the chicken, the dressing, and the (toasted) bread.
When you make the dressing in step 4, whisk the peanut butter in fully, then toss it through the whole salad instead of drizzling it on top. The raw carrot here carries a big load of beta-carotene, and in a study on raw shredded carrot, almost none of it reached the bloodstream without fat in the same meal — absorption climbed steadily as fat went up. Coating the carrot in the peanut dressing puts the fat right where it's needed.
Researchers fed people raw shredded carrot with steadily increasing amounts of fat and tracked what showed up in their blood afterward. At zero fat, beta-carotene absorption was negligible. Every added gram of fat lifted it in a straight line. The carrot never changed — only whether the fat was there to carry it.
Raw carrot + fat, controlled feeding study · DOIWhy This Works
Behind this recipe
Can I skip the peanut dressing to cut calories?
You can, but you'd lose more than flavor. The 140g of raw carrot in this bowl is loaded with beta-carotene, and research on raw shredded carrot found that almost none of it gets absorbed without fat in the same meal. The peanut butter, milk, and olive oil push this plate to 29g of fat, well past the point where absorption kicks in. The dressing is doing real work, not just seasoning.
Read the full evidence reviewIs 39g of protein in one meal too much for my body to use?
No. The idea that your body caps out around 30g per meal and wastes the rest is a myth the research doesn't support — your body uses the protein from a full meal like this one, it just takes a little longer to work through it. The 39g here comes from the whole plate: chicken, peanut butter, milk, and the bread.
Read the full evidence reviewNo spiralizer at home — can I still make it?
Yes. Grate the zucchini on the coarse side of a box grater instead of spiralizing it. You get the same soft raw ribbons that soak up the dressing, no special tool needed.
