quick healthy easy recipes thai salad

Quick Healthy Easy Recipes Thai Salad

Original inspiration Thai Salad of Awesome from Mark’s Daily Apple. This simply turned out great! I am eating this again for lunch as well.

For those of you who are not avid Thai food eaters, let me describe some of the appeal. First of all, Thai food (or should I say American Thai inspired food as I have not been to Thailand and cannot say for sure ) focuses largely on fresh crispy vegetables (raw or really quickly stirfried so they don’t lose crispness) and bright fresh flavors with a strong salty-sweet-sour-spicy flavor.

These are commonly used ingredients to get that signature flavor -

• Lemongrass, Tamarind juice or pulp, lime, lemon, and rice wine vinegar for the sour flavor
• Fish sauce for the salty (a little soy sauce too and sometimes shrimp paste)
• Sugar (cane sugar, white sugar, or splenda for you) for the sweet
• Bean sprouts add a signature freshness and crunch
• Sesame oil
• Peanuts
• A variety of raw chilies or chili paste for the spiciness.
• Cilantro, Thai basil (can always substitute regular Basil), and mint.
• The vegetables and meat you use are up to you. Most will work great.

For my recipes I choose to use some specialty ingredients and some that I already had on hand.

For the salad:

• Baby spinach
• Green cabbage
• Cherry tomatoes
• Snow peas
• Red Bell Pepper
• Bean sprouts
• Mango
• Avocado
• Cooked shrimp
• Cilantro, Thai Basil, and Mint

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup Mild tasting oil
• 2 Limes (or a combination of lemon and rice wine vinegar)
• 2 tsp Fish sauce
• 1 tsp Soy sauce
• 1 small clove garlic minced
• 1-2tsp grated or minced ginger
• Optional – A sprinkle of red pepper flakes, a little Splenda, a little sesame oil.

First I started with a large bowl that I filled halfway with baby spinach and green cabbage.

I then added leftover mixed color cherry tomatoes and two large handfuls of bean sprouts.

Next I added half of a red bell pepper chopped into little cubes, and two handfuls of snow peas cut into narrow strips.

Meanwhile, I heated a nonstick pan on high for 3 min until hot. I then added a tiny bit of oil and quickly stir fried shrimp until pink and no longer transparent. This took 3-4min.

I also chopped up a quarter of a mango. If you are not already familiar with how to cut a mango, I suggest you watch this video. Mangoes have thick inner cores which make them tricky to cut up. This is the technique I use at home:

Here is a shot of the salad with the addition of the shrimp and mango.

Next I took cilantro, thai basil, and mint and chopped each into small pieces.

Lastly I cut up half of an avocado. I waited to do the avocado last as I did not want it to turn brown.

If you have trouble selecting good avocados, I recommend watching this video. You will also see how to cut an avocado the right way.

I mixed together my dressing, and then mixed all ingredients to coat.

This was the finished product. Very happy.

Let me know what you think!