According to American food historian Sylvia Lovegren, Chinese/Asian ingredient-inspired salad/dressing originated in the 1930s in the US. In the book Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, she wrote:

"There are many different types of cold chicken salad in China, although most of them seem to originate in Szechwan. One of the most popular is pong pong (or bong bong) chicken, which is basically shredded chicken and bean sprouts dressed with a peanut butter, red pepper, and garlic sauce. But the Chinese chicken salad that was being consumed in such quantities by the fashionable set--probably among rising young record and film producers on the West Coast--probably orginated in California. This version is a cold mixture of shredded iceberg lettuce, crispy fried noodles, the strips of roasted chicken, all tossed with a slightly sweet sesame oil--tinged dressing made sprightly with flecks of hot red peppers. There is a similar chicken salad, known as so see chicken, made popular at Johnny Kan's restaurant in San Francisco, but Kan's version omits the fried noodles."