Serving Size : 4
Notes:
All the salads on Wendy's "Garden Sensations" menu -- this is the one that draws all the cloning requests. It's the sesame dressing that everyone's nuts about. The clone below gives you a nice 1 1/2 cups of the tasty stuff so it'll fit perfectly into a standard dressing cruet. Once you've got your dressing made -- building the rest of the Mandarin chicken salad is a breeze.
Sesame Dressing:
1/2 cup corn syrup
3 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
2 tablespoon pineapple juice
4 tsp. granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/4 tsp. ground mustard
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. paprika
1 dash garlic powder
1 dash ground black pepper
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. sesame seeds
Mandarin Chicken Salad:
4 chicken breast fillets
1 large head iceberg lettuce -- chopped
4 cup red leaf lettuce -- chopped
1 1/3 cup canned mandarin orange wedges
1 cup rice noodles
1 cup roasted sliced almonds
Preparation:
Prepare dressing by combining all dressing ingredients except vegetable oil and sesame seeds in a blender on high speed. Slowly add oil to mixture (to create an emulsion). Add sesame seeds and blend for just a couple seconds. Pour dressing into a covered container (such as a dressing cruet) and chill until needed.
Rub each chicken breast fillet with oil -- then lightly salt and pepper each piece. Grill on medium/high heat until done. Chill chicken breasts in refrigerator until cold.
When chicken is cold, build each salad by first arranging about 4 cups of iceberg lettuce in the bottom of a large salad bowl or on a plate. Next, arrange a cup of red leaf lettuce on the iceberg lettuce.
Dice each chicken breast into bite-size pieces and sprinkle the pieces from each one over each salad.
Arrange about 1/3 cup of mandarin orange wedges on each salad.
Next, sprinkle about 1/4 cup of rice noodles and 1/4 cup of roasted sliced almonds on top of each salad.
Add desired amount of sesame dressing and serve.
Source:
Author: Todd Wilbur