Thai Salad – a super fresh, light and healthy salad with the flavours of Thailand. This is a great recipe to make for a crowd if you’re looking to freshen up, and glam your dinner time!
Whoops, I accidentally brought two Thai recipes in two weeks (hello salmon curry!)! What can I say, I love Thai food!
Do you know what I also love? Big, hearty healthy salads! Give me a big bowl of Israeli couscous salad, a plate of pesto potato salad or a healthy grain salad and I’m a happy gal!
Leafy Green Thai Salad
This salad is light, fresh and healthy – everything you look for in a salad. A simple green salad turned extraordinary, a must have at your next gathering!
This salad has fresh vegetables, and is combined with a beautiful, lightly spiced Thai inspired dressing.
Thai Salad Ingredients
Fresh veggies are the key to this dish. This Thai salad used a leafy green based, and is then topped with fresh veggies.
You’ll need;
- salad greens
- Lebanese/Persian cucumber
- red onion finely sliced
- red capsicum/red pepper
- carrot
- fresh herbs
How to Cut Your Veggies
The methods used to cut the cucumber, carrot and capsicum is called Julienning.
To julienne a vegetable simple means to cut them into match sticks. You want your carrot, cucumber and capsicum to be cut into thin matchsticks for this salad.
How to Make the Thai Dressing
The dressing is the key element of this salad. Without it, the salad is super plan and bland. It brings the Thai flavour to the salad and should not be skipped.
To make the dressing you’ll need;
- red chili
- tamari soy (or soy sauce)
- coconut sugar, brown sugar or white sugar
- fish sauce
- sesame oil
- lime juice
Combine these ingredients into a jar and shake well, adjusting flavours as you go.
Thai cooking requires a balance of sweetness, saltiness, spice and sourness.
What to Serve Thai Salad With
This salad basically goes with anything, but in particular, pairs really well with light proteins such as salmon.
You could also serve it with beef marinated in a bit of lime juice, chili, tamari soy and sesame oil.
Want more Thai recipes? Try these
- Thai Chicken Sausage Rolls
- Thai Red Curry with Chicken
- Red Salmon Curry
- Thai Vermicelli Noodle Salad by It’s Not Complicated
- Thai Chicken Larb by It’s Not Complicated
- Thai Pomelo Salad with Roast Duck by The Devil Wears Salad
If You’re Looking for More Salad Recipes, try this!
Georgie x
Thai Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups mixed salad green
- 1 Lebanese cucumber julienned (also known as a Persian cucumber)
- 1/4 cup red onion very finely sliced
- 3/4 red pepper finely sliced
- 1 carrot julienned
- 1/4 cup mint roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup cilantro roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp peanuts roughly chopped
Dressing
- 1/2 red chilli seeds removed finely diced (note 1)
- 2 tbs tamari note 2
- 2 tsp coconut sugar note 3
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice
Instructions
- Slice onion, cucumber, carrot and red pepper.
- Place salad leaves in a large bowl
- Top with onion, cucumber, carrot and red pepper.
- Make dressing by placing all ingredients in a jar and shaking. Adjust flavours according to taste.
- Pour dressing over salad and lightly toss.
- Top salad with bean sprouts, mint, coriander and top with peanuts.
Notes
Nutrition
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I’m a total recipe hoarder too. Even if I already have 300 recipes for chocolate cake, when I find one more, I just have to copy it down. I’ll never have time to try all of them! This salad sounds wonderful, and totally perfect for summer.
Ha ha recipe hoarding is the best! I am terrible to, and don’t even have anywhere to put them all! this salad rocks for summer! I probably put too much chili in my last salad however! it can get super spicy!
Great post. Reminds me of the salad i had in bangkok. The fish sauce makes it so uniquely Thai..I also once had the same dish with dried shrimp and an anchovie type fish and that was quite a weird taste. Knowing how the fish sauce itself smells so fishy I had to drizzle a lot of lime and pepper to cut the fishy taste.
Once again great post and thanks for bringing back some memories!
Thanks Andy 🙂 My husband has been to Vietnam and absolutely loved it. He saw the markets where they made fish sauce and said it was really interesting! Fish sauce can be quite over powering, that’s why we are always constantly tasting our recipes, especially Thai. There is a delicate balance between salty, sweet, spicy and sour!
These flavors are right up my alley Georgie!! I love that you reduced it for 2+…we often have the problem here of making too much in a short time. Love this!
Thanks Lindsay! These flavours are on point! Asian cooking is my absolute fav! With Adam and I just at home, it’s so easy to waste food! My old food blog used to be just cooking for two, so some of my recipes still abide by that rule!
This is the ultimate green salad recipe, Georgie! Is there any alternative to fish sauce?
Thanks Agness!!! It is great for a healthier salad! To be honest, I don’t know if there is a fish sauce substitute. But as it’s only 1 teaspoons it shouldn’t make much of a difference if you leave it out. The fish sauce adds a salty element to the dressing, but as the dressing also contains soy sauce/tamari it should still have the saltiness it needs without the fish sauce 🙂
I love how light and colorful this salad is. And I really love the dressing. It’s super easy to prepare and can definitely work with all kind of vegetables and salads.
thanks Anita, it’s definitely easy to make and makes a beautiful meal with fish or chicken!
Loving the textures and colors in this one! This would go so well with grilled chicken or salmon!
it does indeed! one of my favourites!
This is an amazing salad! I just loved all the bright colors and fresh flavors! YUm!
thanks Jenn it’s one of my favourites!
I love everything about this salad! So refreshing and really easy to make!
Thanks Toni, isn’t it just gorgeous!
Loved this flavorful salad!
Glad you loved it Elena!
This is wonderful. The prettiness of the salad is what got my attention! And some salmon or grilled chicken would go so well on top, with that lovely dressing.
thank you! it’s such a fresh salad, great with a thai style marinated steak!
It’s really amazing salad ,I also added some red cabbage and small pink radish and its goes more crunchy and yummy….thanks for this recipe
thanks Lorna for the feedback! it is a beauty isn’t it!