Taco Slaw is a slaw designed for stuffing in tacos. With a limey sour cream based dressing, it’s a personal favourite because it pairs so well with Mexican flavours and does triple duty – good hit of vegetables (cabbage wilts so much!), juicy enough to fill the role of a sauce/salsa (ie less taco fixings to make), and makes a nice floppy bed for taco fillings to nestle in.
Taco Slaw
I find myself suggesting this Taco Slaw to use in tacos so regularly, I thought it would make sense to publish it as a separate post. It is actually buried in a couple of recipes here on my website and in both my cookbooks, but I am thinking specifically of myself here that it would be handy to have as a separate recipe, for ease of finding it.
So here it is! Think – regular Coleslaw, but lighter because the dressing is mostly made with sour cream rather than mayonnaise, and there’s a lovely lime flavour to it that adds freshness and is a natural pairing for Mexican food flavours.
What to use this Taco Slaw for
Use it with taco fillings that are pieces of proteins like Crunchy Chicken Taco Fingers, Fish Tacos, Chipotle Prawn Tacos, Baja Fish Tacos, Grilled Chicken for Tacos etc. rather than saucy / shredded things (too much same-same).
With this Taco Slaw, it provides a fantastic combination of crunch as well as “juiciness” so you really don’t need to go to much effort for other topping (like Pico de Gallo or Guacamole) because the taco gets too messy and too “wet”. For example, in today’s Chicken Taco Fingers, I just used a drizzle of sriracha and in the Prawn Tacos pictured below, it’s my simple pink sauce which is just sriracha plus sour cream.
You can also serve this Taco Slaw as a side salad, like regular slaw!
No video for this one, being a quick and simple side.
Enjoy! – Nagi x
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Taco Slaw
Ingredients
- 6 tightly packed cups green cabbage , finely shredded (about 1/4 head)
- 1 cup green onion , finely sliced on the diagonal
- 1/2 cup finely chopped coriander/cilantro leaves
Taco Slaw Dressing:
- 1/2 cup sour cream (sub plain yogurt)
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise OR 1 tbsp olive oil (ie halve amount)
- 2 tsp lime zest
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1/2 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt (halve for table salt)
Instructions
- Mix the dressing ingredients in a large bowl.
- Toss – Add the Slaw ingredients then toss well with hands or tongs.
- Set aside for at least 1 hour until the cabbage becomes wilted and floppy. Toss again then use in tacos!
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
It doesn’t matter how big your TV screen is. It’s no match for Dozer!
The most delicious zesty slaw!! Will be definitely making this again and again!
Wow! This was the BEST salad. We don’t like limp droopy cabbage 🤣 so we ate the salad immediately and it was super delicious. Also, I didn’t have coriander so replaced it with parsley.
So glad you enjoyed this Maria!! Thanks for letting me know. – N x
I have made taco slaw from Dinner many times!! It is perfect with the Mexican recipes in that chapter, I love it with a slow cooked meat plus the red rice. My husband scoffs it down!
Oh, I love hearing that!! Isn’t it great? The lime flavour! And I love that it’s not mayo heavy 🙂 N x