Asian Chicken Pasta Salad Recipe

Ingredients

Salad ingredients:

• 1 box bow tie pasta
• 4 chicken breasts cooked & shredded or all the breast meat of one large rotisserie chicken
• 1/4 cup green onions sliced & diced into oblivion
• 1/2 pack sliced almonds toasted
• 1 bag baby spinach stems removed
• 1 small bag pea pods
• 1 small can mandarin oranges drained

For the Salad Dressing (Double this for the marinade)

• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil *or sesame oil is great here too
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds toasted
• 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan, remove from heat and separate into two bowls for the dressings.
2. Shred the chicken breast meat from a rotisserie chicken.
3. Mix up the two separate batches of the dressing to be used as a marinade and later as a salad dressing.
4. Cook the pasta until al dente (do not over cook the pasta), remove the pasta from the water.
5. In a large bowl while the pasta and chicken are still warm, add the dressing and toss. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until chilled. Optional: If you'd like, you can move the chicken and pasta to a ziplock gallon sized bag to chill in the fridge for a more even marinade.
6. Marinate chicken & pasta in the fridge overnight, or for a few hours until chilled.
7. Toast the sliced almonds in a dry pan, remove from pan.
8. In a large bowl add the marinaded pasta and chicken and all the other salad ingredients.
9. Toss with the salad dressing and serve.

Recipe source: nobiggie