Tuesday, April 10, 2007

12 Second Coleslaw… in 42 seconds!

OK, I’ll admit it, this doesn’t look like a very exciting recipe, but that’s the point. Sure, the photo is boring. I didn’t even bother to Photoshop in some colorful veggies! When most people think of coleslaw they think of that bowl of soggy shredded cabbage sitting at the end of the picnic table. This is a completely different approach. This is fresh shredded cabbage prepared as a fast (12 seconds to add the ingredients, and 30 seconds to mix), crisp, low-cal, low-carb, slightly spicy, and delicious side dish that you should be eating as part of your regular veggie side-dish rotation. Do yourself a favor and find a grocery store in your town that carries the “angel hair” finely shredded cabbage, ready-to-mix in the bag. My 12 second coleslaw in 42 seconds claim only counts if you use the pre-shredded bag. By the way, I have no problem taking an extra 5 minutes and shredding my own cabbage, but I rarely can use a whole head and so I don’t like to buy those giant heads unless I’m making this for a large group.

There are 2 keys to this super-slaw; the very small amount of highly-seasoned dressing (it really doesn’t look like enough but you’ll see that it is), and the fact that I don’t toss the cabbage and the dressing together until I’m ready to eat. As soon as any dressing hits shredded cabbage, water starts to be pulled out of the leaves, which causes most traditionally made coleslaws to go limp and soggy. By mixing just before you eat, you will experience the true essence of fresh coleslaw; sweet, crunchy and refreshing. I served this under a spicy Jerked Chicken (aka Jerky Chicken), and it was perfect!

Ingredients:
10 oz. bag of Angel Hair Shredded Cabbage
2 tbl Seasoned Rice Vinegar
2 tbl Thousand Island Dressing
1 tsp hot sauce of your choice
pinch of salt
*I didn’t because I only had 12 seconds, but you can certainly add ANY finely shredded raw vegetables to this coleslaw and yours won’t look as boring as mine.

3 comments:

MellowRoast said...

Thank you for a great recipe! How simple can you get?

Could you also show us how to salt & drain cabbage for conventional refrigerated slaw? Those puddles of liquefied dressing drive me crazy.

1Bigg_ER said...

I made this last night, used Sambal Oelek, great simple recipe.

cookinmom said...

Question...would this be good on a sandwich such as a Po'Boy, reuban or pastrami...?