Chinese Chicken Salad

I went to a baby shower a couple of months ago and they had the best Chinese Chicken Salad there. I asked my friend for the recipe, and saw that it had 2/3 C oil in it, which is like 40 points. So I took the challenge to lighten it up. First, I had to find an oil substitute. The baking substitutes like apple sauce and yogurt obviously wouldn't work in a salad dressing, so I did a little research. It was trickier than I thought it would be to find. Finally I read an article about pectin. You know, the stuff you use when making jam. It is made from fruit and has 0 calories. You mix 1 T pectin with 1/4 C of water to substitute for 1/4 C oil. So I tried it in this recipe. It worked like a champ! I also substituted Splenda for sugar, but you might try a natural substitute if you are not a Splenda fan. I'm sure honey or Stevia would work too, you just need to add the points.


Salad Ingredients (Makes 4 very large dinner-size servings)
Whole Salad is 30 pts.
Each Serving is 7 1/2 pts.

1 head green cabbage, shredded
10 oz cooked chicken breast - chopped into 1/2" pieces
2 green onions, chopped
1 1/2 C shelled edamame
4 T sliced almonds
2 sm. cans mandarin oranges, drained

Dressing:

Seasoning Packet from Ichibon Japanese Noodles (Japanese Top Ramen in Asian aisle)
1/2 C splenda
2 T + 2 t. canola oil
2 T pectin mixed into 1/2 C water
6 T seasoned rice vinegar
1/4 t. pepper
1 t. sesame oil

Shake or mix dressing ingredients together. Dressing is enough to toss 6 main dish salads. For this recipe size (4 main dish salads) use 6-7 oz. of dressing. (Whole recipe makes about 10 oz. dressing) Toss with all salad ingredients until oranges start to break up.