You Can Finally Make The Cheesecake Factory's Chinese Chicken Salad At Home

If you’ve started to hit a wall with your at-home lunches — a person can only eat so much peanut butter and jelly before meeting their sandwich-fueled demise — fear not: your beloved mall restaurant chain is here to save your hungry soul. Yes, I am talking about the one, the only, The Cheesecake Factory. Cheesecake Factory just shared its Chinese Chicken Salad recipe so you can bring a little bit of its cuisine to your kitchen.

Like most salads, the directions are mostly just “chop, mix, and plate.” It’s the ingredients that make this Chinese Chicken Salad particularly Cheesecake Factory-esque. If you want to julienne instead of chop, go right ahead. If you want to aimlessly tear apart your lettuce, more power to you. Here’s what to add to your shopping list if you want to recreate The Cheesecake Factory’s Chinese Chicken Salad:

• Iceberg lettuce
• Romaine lettuce
• Red cabbage
• Bean sprouts
• Green onions
• Chicken breast or another sliceable and poachable cut of chicken. If you’re trying to cut down on the meat, sub out the chicken for a plant-based protein like Gardein’s crispy tender or Yves’ veggie chick’n tenders.
• Sesame-plum dressing (Annie’s has a sesame dressing that would make for a good substitute or try making your own sesame plum dressing using this recipe from Bake Space)
• Mandarin oranges
• Crispy rice noodles
• Crispy won ton strips
• Slivered almonds
• Black and white sesame seeds
• Snow peas

Of course, this is your salad, so you can add or take out whatever you want. Don’t like mandarin oranges? Add some cut up apple or dried cherries instead. Not into bean sprouts? Get those sprouty bean boys outta there. Want your salad to be mostly composed of won ton strips? You’re speaking my salad language. Pile on those crunchy guys, my friend. If you want to get extra creative with it, you could sprinkle a tiny bit of Trader Joe’s Furikake Seasoning for a savory, seaweedy twist. Your pantry is your salad oyster or something like that. For the full recipe, check out The Cheesecake Factory’s blog post.

Your at-home Cheesecake Factory meal needn’t be limited to this Chinese Chicken Salad. You can recreate many of your in-restaurant favorites at home. In 2018, The Cheesecake Factory brought its iconic brown bread to grocery stores across the country. You can still find stores that sell The Cheesecake Factory’s brown bread using the brand’s carb locator. (They do not call it a carb locator, but that is effectively what it is.)

The Cheesecake Factory recently released its own line of ice cream. The range includes flavors like Key Lime, Birthday Cake, Salted Caramel, and Original, flavored like The Cheesecake Factory’s original cheesecake complete with graham cracker swirls). There’s even a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake mix to fully live out your DIY Cheesecake Factory dreams.

While you may not have access to the tome that is The Cheesecake Factory’s menu, you can peruse this Twitter thread on The Cheesecake Factory’s restaurant design which is, put simply, buck wild. If nothing else, give this Chinese Chicken Salad a try to add some much-needed variety to your regular meals.