Few experiences compare to the salvation offered by cooler-crisp slaws in the thick of summer’s sweltering heat. Something about the chill of cold vegetables sliced, shaved, or chopped into a satiating mix is powerful enough to arrest all my other senses for a moment of peace. There’s no blazing sun; no triple-digit temperatures. There’s just me, my slaws, and my pleasure.
But with many Southern-style coleslaws that rely on lettuce or cabbage as their foundations, that moment never comes. Anyone who has been to a picnic, crashed a cookout, or just wandered into an outdoor dining set-up recently knows the situation: sad, wilted slivers of lettuce and carrots awash in diluted mayonnaise that has long since lost its creaminess as salt and other seasonings coax the moisture out of the very vegetables that provide the dish with its signature structure. The resulting mixture is sufficient grounds for getting immediately (and forcefully) removed from any summertime gathering — especially a family reunion, if you even dare to disgrace the table with such a sorry contribution. And if you’re still unsure of how sad this looks in real life, just think of KFC coleslaw, which never fails to arrive in a weird white slurry that manages to be thinner than water and less translucent.
So it’s time we celebrate the slaws that won’t wilt, the ones whose matchsticks of green papayas and shards of Asian pears resist the heat and provide — and preserve!— irresistible crunch and texture. It’s these slaws we’re making our go-to for the idyllic summer side.
A staple in countless Asian diasporic cultural traditions, green papayas are an underutilized ingredient for many American home cooks who didn’t grow up with the fruit. Instead of learning from the composition of dishes like som tum, they turn to increasingly expensive coolers and other ridiculous storage methods in order to solve a problem that was never truly an ingredient issue. This is painfully obvious information that I’m sure anyone who has grown up savoring the flavor and textural contributions that spears of green mango or papaya can provide to a once-unimpressive combination of ingredients.
But it’s not just a matter of overhauling your produce entirely. After all, we’re not talking about different species of mangoes or papayas so much as we’re really talking about ripeness, another slaw saboteur that masquerades as an ally. Although I feel there’s some carnal urge in all of us to seek out the ripest fruits and vegetables that the season could possibly offer, that’s actually another reason why slaws too often suck: They’re being ruled by conventional Western standards for what dictates ripeness for stone fruits eaten fresh from their lofty branches. Instead, go for greener produce (both literally and figuratively) since they also carry less moisture than other heavily fetishized counterparts, which tend to be praised for how easily a thumb could break skin and produce a river of juice. (Yes, I’m looking at you, peaches, plums, and horny TikTokers. Go outside! Touch grass!). And you can extend this to green apples, carrots in multiple colors, radishes, or even Korean pears. Across the board, firmer fruits or roots mean less concern for you over their ability to stand up to acids like apple cider vinegar or lime juice, seasoning salts, and other spices that can amp up what you bring to the table but pose a structural risk.
Beyond produce selection, how do you start ‘suping up your slaws? Draw inspiration from a plethora of restaurants and cookbook authors! For me, that means referencing the many times I’ve devoured the beef and papaya salad at Moon Rabbit in Houston, or swooned over Andrea Q. Nguyen’s command of produce showered in vinegar and fish sauce, or emulated the creations that have come out of chef Pim Techamuanvivit’s numerous award-winning, -nominated, and/or locally beloved restaurants. Browsing the social media of restaurants, like Nari or Kin Kha, provides me with just enough inspiration and encouragement to pull from a wider array of slaw ingredients than someone chained to a sole recipe from the American South might seriously consider. (To be clear, this is neither a dismissal nor a critique of a true Southern coleslaw; it is a takedown of the many bastardizations of the icon we encounter on a daily basis: Beyoncé has years of haunting wax figures; I have weirdly milk slaws. We all have our demons.) The options and outlets for slaw inspiration are endless, especially when you consider the forthcoming cookbook that Nguyen and Techmuanvivit are writing together, not to mention the deeply rich and complex world of cookbook writing that centers the Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander culinary traditions that have been demonstrating these practice for generations.
But also remember that you don’t have to aspire to professional culinary heights to make a damn good slaw, which more often than not is the real goal of these well-intentioned tweaks. Sometimes, the trick to a more intact slaw is simply a matter of timing: Slicing your ingredients and proportioning any vinegars or sauces ahead of time will allow you to transparent the components more readily, but ultimately, it also spares you time that your produce would otherwise be macerating in that funky bath of flavorful sauces. Taking into account not just how the slaw gets made (metaphorically) but also how it truly arrives at a table — from picking your produce to actually mixing it tableside, as I’d recommend — will afford you the opportunity to perform being a good guest or host while also ensuring whatever you’re serving truly is the star of the show.
However you decide to act on this information, I hope it leads you to a wider, richer world of slaws that won’t be dragged down by watery mayonnaise, curdled dairy, or god forbid, wilted lettuce. We all deserve better than that.
Additional photo illustration credits: Slaw photo by Dina Ávila
