Chinese Chicken Salad -- The Sesame Thread That Ties It All Together

June in Seattle: the city's reward for enduring nine months of gray. The days stretch past 9 PM, the light gold and generous, and everyone walks slower, eats outside, smiles at strangers. I've been walking to work every morning through Cal Anderson Park, where the dog walkers and joggers and yoga people have colonized every square foot of grass, and the normalcy of it — the unremarkable beauty of a city enjoying summer — makes me feel both part of something and apart from it. I am a person walking through a park. I am also a person walking through her own life wondering when it will start feeling like hers.

This week I made japchae for the first time. Sweet potato glass noodles stir-fried with vegetables and beef, seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil. Maangchi's recipe, of course — she's become my Korean cooking instructor, my virtual halmoni, the grandmother I never had who teaches me through a screen. The noodles were tricky — they're slippery and strange, nothing like the pasta I grew up eating, translucent and chewy and made from sweet potato starch, which is a concept that still amazes me: noodles made from potatoes. The japchae came out well. Not restaurant-quality, but good — the vegetables crisp, the noodles properly seasoned, the sesame oil tying everything together in that fragrant way that sesame oil does, making the whole apartment smell like warmth.

I brought japchae to work for lunch and ate it at my desk. A coworker — Jenny, one of the few women on the team — stopped and said, "That looks amazing, where'd you get it?" I said, "I made it." She said, "You cook Korean food?" as if this were an unusual thing for a Korean person to do, which, in my case, it technically is unusual, being that I've been Korean for twenty-two years and cooking Korean for about six weeks. But I just said, "I'm learning," and she said she'd love to try Korean cooking sometime, and I said, "I can send you the YouTube channel," and for a moment I felt like a person who belonged to a culture she could share rather than a person standing outside a culture she could only observe.

The other thing that happened this week: I found a Korean language app. Just downloaded it on my phone, no fanfare, the way you might download a weather app or a game. But it's not a game. It's Duolingo's Korean course, and I've been doing ten minutes every night before bed, learning Hangul — the Korean alphabet — which is actually a beautiful system, each character designed to represent the shape of the mouth and tongue when making the sound. It's logical. Engineered, almost. Someone — King Sejong, in the fifteenth century — sat down and designed an alphabet from scratch so that common people could read, and the deliberateness of that, the engineering of language, appeals to the part of me that builds systems for a living. I can read about ten characters now. I can sound out simple words. It's nothing. It's everything.

Saturday: Bellevue. Karen made salmon with dill — a summer recipe she's been making since the '90s, light and herby and completely American in the way that Seattle defines American, which is to say: health-conscious, slightly bland, and served with a side salad from Costco. I love Karen's salmon. I also brought japchae, which Karen tried with genuine enthusiasm (she liked it — the sweetness of the noodles, the familiarity of the vegetables) and David ate politely. We're developing a pattern: I bring Korean food, Karen tries it, David retreats to his comfort zone. It's not resistance on David's part — it's just the conservatism of a sixty-three-year-old Boeing engineer who has eaten the same twelve meals his entire adult life and sees no reason to change. I can't be angry about that. I can't be angry about the things the Parks can't be. I can only be grateful for what they are, and add my own dishes to the table.

Kevin and I texted about his coffee roasting experiments. He's been doing small batches at home — a popcorn popper converted to a roaster, which sounds dangerous and probably is, but Kevin has always been drawn to things that are slightly dangerous, and at least this one produces excellent coffee rather than emergency room visits. He sent me a photo of beans mid-roast, golden and cracking, and the pride in the text was palpable. We're both learning to make things, Kevin and I. Korean food, coffee. Both of us adopted, both of us building identities through the things we create with our hands. I wonder if he sees the parallel. I wonder if it matters whether he does.

Tonight I made japchae again — the second time in a week, adjusting the seasoning, cutting the vegetables more uniformly, learning the muscle memory of the dish. I ate it on my couch, watching a Korean drama on Netflix with English subtitles, and for the first time the Korean voices on the screen felt less foreign and more — possible. Like a door I might eventually walk through. Like a language that might eventually be mine. Not yet. But the japchae is mine now, and the kimchi is mine, and the rice cooker sings its song every evening, and the silence in my condo is being filled, one Korean dish at a time, with sounds and smells that feel ancestral even though they're new. And that's June. That's week eleven. That's where I am.

Making japchae twice in one week taught me something: the dishes I want to belong to don’t have to be perfectly authentic to be genuinely mine. That same spirit — familiar ingredients, unfamiliar technique, sesame oil pulling everything together — is exactly what drew me to this Chinese Chicken Salad. It has the same fragrant sesame backbone, the same satisfying mix of textures, and it’s the kind of recipe that rewards the patience of someone still building their kitchen confidence. If you’re in a season of learning, this one will meet you right where you are.

Chinese Chicken Salad

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded
• 4 cups napa cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 cup red cabbage, thinly sliced
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 1/4 cup crispy wonton strips or chow mein noodles
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
• 1 can (11 oz) mandarin oranges, drained
• For the dressing:
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil (such as avocado or canola)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, ginger, garlic, and neutral oil until fully emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside — the dressing can be made up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated.
2. Prep the salad base. In a large bowl, combine the napa cabbage, red cabbage, and shredded carrots. Toss to mix evenly.
3. Add the chicken. Scatter the shredded chicken over the cabbage mixture. If you’re using rotisserie chicken, this is a perfect shortcut — just pull the meat and toss.
4. Add toppings. Layer in the green onions, mandarin orange segments, toasted almonds, and sesame seeds.
5. Dress and toss. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well to coat everything evenly. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
6. Add the crunch. Top with wonton strips or chow mein noodles just before serving so they stay crispy. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 370 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 24g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 620mg