This Asian slaw recipe is filled with my favorite summer ingredients - fresh herbs & peaches - and tossed in a tangy miso dressing. Perfect for picnics!
This Asian slaw recipe falls into my favorite category of food: summer salads! Colorful, juicy, crunchy, sweet, bitter, herby, spicy… there are so many flavors and textures to put together with all of the great fruits and vegetables that are in season right now. I love a good salad all year round, but the summer salad will always have my heart.
This Asian slaw recipe is a fantastic example of the summer salad’s potential. It takes under 30 minutes to make, and it’s jam-packed with contrasting textures and flavors. It’d be a perfect side dish for a cookout, but it’s also good enough to enjoy as a meal on its own!
Asian Slaw Ingredients
This Asian slaw recipe is chock-full of fresh ingredients! Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
- Crunchy green and red cabbage – Instead of buying a packaged coleslaw mix, I shred my own cabbage for this recipe. Using a mix of red and green cabbage makes it extra pretty, but it tastes delicious with just one variety too.
- Charred peppers – I used a mix of Anaheim and banana peppers, but red bell pepper and poblano would also be nice. They add heat, extra color, and yummy charred flavor.
- Green onions, cilantro, mint & basil – If you ask me, no summer salad is complete without herbs. This mix fills the slaw with fresh, surprising flavor, but if you don’t have all these herbs, that’s ok! Feel free to use what you have on hand. Along with the green onions, just one or two herbs would add plenty of flavor.
- Peaches – They add a juicy, sweet contrast to the other savory, crisp elements.
- Seeds or nuts – For crunch and toasty flavor!
A yummy ginger miso sauce ties it all together! The dressing ingredients include cashew butter, lime juice, sesame oil, miso, and fresh ginger, so it’s creamy, tangy, nutty, and umami. It’s so delicious that you might want to make extra sauce to have on hand for salads and grain bowls throughout the week!
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Asian Slaw Recipe Serving Suggestions
This Asian slaw keeps well if you make it ahead of time, so it’s a great recipe to prep for lunch. Pair it with avocado summer rolls or peanut spring rolls, or enjoy it on its own! I often top it with baked tofu or tempeh for extra protein. See this post for more healthy lunch ideas!
With its fresh, tangy, umami flavor, this Asian slaw also makes a show-stopping cookout side dish. Serve it with whatever you’re grilling, or with one of these fun cookout recipes:
- Best Veggie Burger
- Black Bean Burger
- Portobello Mushroom Burger
- Cauliflower Po’ Boy Sandwich
- BBQ Jackfruit Sandwiches
Enjoy!
More Favorite Salad Recipes
If you love this Asian slaw recipe, try one of these summer salads next:
- Watermelon Salad with Feta
- Easy Pasta Salad
- Best Broccoli Salad
- Cucumber Salad
- Greek Salad
- Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
- Or any of these 37 Best Salad Recipes!
Asian Slaw
- ¼ cup cashew or peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons white miso paste
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- 2 to 5 tablespoons water, or as needed
- 6 to 7 cups shredded red and/or green cabbage
- Mix of peppers: I used 3 Anaheim and 3 banana peppers; or use 1 red bell and 1 poblano.
- 2 scallions, chopped
- ½ cup chopped cilantro, including stems
- ½ cup fresh basil, Thai basil, and/or mint
- 2 Thai chiles or 1 serrano pepper, diced
- Sea salt
- ¼ cup toasted peanuts, pepitas, and/or sesame seeds
- 1 ripe peach, thinly sliced
- Make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the cashew butter, miso paste, lime juice, sesame oil, and ginger. Whisk in enough water to create a drizzable consistency. Set aside.
- In a dry cast-iron skillet over medium heat, char the peppers whole, rotating until the edges have a little char, about 2 minutes per side. Remove. When cool to the touch, slice in half lengthwise, remove the stem, ribbing, and seeds and slice horizontally into thin strips.
- In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, peppers, scallions, cilantro, basil, chiles, and ¾ of the dressing. Toss until combined. Add the remaining dressing, if desired, and season to taste with a few pinches of sea salt. Serve topped with the toasted nuts, seeds, and sliced peaches.
SO good! I could eat the miso dressing with a spoon. I was skeptical about the peach, but it worked really well with the slaw. I prepped the dressing in advance and then just mixed it with the slaw ingredients when it was time to eat- definitely NOT watery like others mentioned!
Made this slaw for a party. The most frequent comment was “interesting”. There are a lot of ingredients — a couple were very expensive. I took more time than I expected to chop, grate, blister, and juice the ingredients. Doubt I will ever make this again.
Super watery slaw. Basically inedible. The recipe should have specified how to handle the slaw so it doesn’t release a ton of water into the salad
I was intrigued by this by the description, tahini miso dressing. So I went into the link to make the recipe but it asked for cashew or almond butter, no tahini. Should the recipe be tahini or nut butter?
Hi Ella, it actually says “tangy” miso dressing, but tahini totally works in place of the nut butter.
Perfect, thank you. Weird, I’m still reading g tahini here though https://www.loveandlemons.com/salad-recipes/
oh, that’s an error, so sorry! I thought you were referring to the description at the top of the recipe page. I do tahini miso all the time, so it was just a typo, but it totally works.
The dressing tastes quite similar to Japanese sesame dressing, so I might use that in future for convenience.
Absolutely delicious,
I used the sesame ginger dressing
When down a treat
Thanks for sharing your beautiful creative food.
Is this supposed to be made with toasted sesame oil or untoasted sesame oil?
toasted!
Sorry I didn’t mean that to sound so loud – thanks for pointing that out, I just updated it in the recipe.
Hi! For someone with a nut allergy, how do you think a nut better substitute would work with this recipe? Sounds yummy!
Is there a substitute for miso as a family member is allergic to soy?
Hi Mike, some miso pastes are soy-free made with chickpeas. Otherwise Coconut Aminos (like soy sauce but without soy) would be a good option. Or just regular sea salt – 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon, more to taste, and more water as needed to get to a pourable consistency. Hope that helps!
This salad is delicious!
This sounds wonderful (although I would have to leave out the serrano pepper). I’m curious how long this would keep in the fridge. The problem is that there are only two of us, and we would not be likely to eat it again the next day. I’m very concerned since the last slaw I made went bad before I could finish it, and it didn’t even have any perishable ingredients in it beyond the cabbage.
Hi Susan, I keep it for about 3 days, I find that cabbage gets better on days 2 and 3 because the dressing has the chance to soften it. The most perishable ingredient here is the peach, which you could either skip or slice on as you’re ready to eat. You could half the recipe if you wanted less quantity overall… another idea would be to keep the chopped salad components separate from the dressing if you wanted them all to last a bit longer. I hope that helps!
Thanks, Jeanine! You have a lot of good ideas that are very helpful. I’m looking forward to trying this slaw.
This looks so delicious. I cannot wait to make this as a side for dinner! The miso is such a great addition. Thank you for sharing!
I hope you love it!
I made this with dinner tonight and it’s the perfect summer combination! I will definitely be making this again and again.
And the sauce is so perfect on lunch grain bowls! Thank you for this recipe!
Hi Rachael, I’m so glad you loved it!! Thanks for coming back to let me know!
A keeper. Everyone LOVED this slaw. To the opposite of Stacey’s comment, my slaw was dry so I added a little water to the dressing and it came out perfect. You can throw almost any fruits with this slaw. My wife asked me to prepare the same slaw for tomorrow’s dinner. 🙂 It’s been an amazing journey since I dropped 15 years ago the steak and potato diet. A realm of flavors to discover. Thank you ! Have your book and love your recipes.
Hi Gil, I’m so happy to hear!! I think nut butters can vary in consistency, I definitely needed some water in my dressing too. I’m so glad your family has been loving the recipes and thanks for coming back to let me know – so helpful!!
Great recipe but I would not cut the dressing with any water. The veggies seem to give up water while standing at room temp and I found the dressing doesn’t coat the slaw as well.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the feedback, I’ll make a note about the range of water.
I love this dressing, peanut butter and miso paste, among other things, and the peaches are a nice addition too this time of year
This is perfect timing; I just picked a lot of fresh basil from my garden too! 🙂
Adding peaches to this slaw was pure genius!
Ginger and peaches… now that’s an interesting combo. I’m definitely going to have to try it 🙂