This quick Mexican slaw is perfect when you need something awesome to go with your star attraction but you don’t have a lot of time.
Cabbage, onions, carrots, jalapeños and a slightly sweet and tangy dressing come together in no time flat. With tacos. With grilled meats. Or even a spicy rare tuna steak.
It’s also a great way to work on your knife skills. Don’t have knife skills? Today is a good day to start. Get yourself a nice sharp chef’s knife.
Google the pinch grip. Watch a couple videos. It’s a life skill everyone needs. It’s not hard. It just takes practice – and this is a great dish to do just that.
Nice thing about quick Mexican slaw is it’s not one of those cloying, creamy coleslaw recipes. This isn’t Colonel Sanders electric green special.
It’s all about the balance between sugar and cider vinegar. A bit of oil and salt to round it out and you’re done.
Ever wonder why some slaws just come together? The cabbage tender? The flavours combined? Just perfect? Simple trick. Pour hot dressing over cool vegetables.
The hot dressing softens the cabbage. You go from a brutal jaw workout to – well, to great slaw. This always works. Any tangy, oil based slaw is just better.
Quick Mexican slaw. Perfect your knife skills. Wow your friends. What’s better than that?
quick mexican slaw
Ingredients
Quick Mexican Slaw
- 4 cups cabbage - thinly sliced
- 1/2 spanish onion - thinly sliced
- 1 large jalapeno - diced
- 1-2 carrots - shredded
Dressing
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 3 Tbsp white sugar
- 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Prepare the vegetables. Toss together in a bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients
- Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Pour hot dressing over the vegetable mixture and toss thoroughly.
- Refrigerate about 1 hour to let all the flavours combine.
Nutrition
Mexican chicken with roasted tomato salsa upscales Mexican into dinner party territory. Two simple ingredients come together with a bit of classic technique to make this something that is more than the sum of the parts.
Just reading the ingredients doesn’t give you the picture. This is not chicken with tomato sauce. Not even close. It’s big Mexican flavours. But deep, earthy tastes. A wonderfully unexpected result.
It’s about the salsa
Roasted tomato salsa is made from almost exactly the same ingredient list as pico de gallo. But the result is completely different.
Dark and sumptuous. Complex. Super savoury. Not at all like the bright, vibrant pico flavours. Isn’t cooking amazing?
Roasted tomato salsa recipes are all over the internet. I think I counted about 7 million. The world does not need another version. This is not another roasted tomato salsa recipe. I did it only to show you how you can use it to make something special.
Technique brings this chicken with roasted tomato salsa home
Classic technique is what brings this all together. Makes it more than just chicken with salsa.
The secret is deglazing the pan with the salsa. Pouring the salsa into the pan and scraping up all the goodness in the bottom. It’s also about cooking the salsa in a bit of chicken fat. Something about that step is pure magic.
When you deglaze your roasting pan with it, it picks up the flavours of the chicken. It suddenly goes from salsa to sauce. Really, really good sauce.
This may not be intuitive but it works. And it works well.
