Simple Thai Salad

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simple thai salad.jpg

One of the benefits of living in Sydney is the abundance of high quality Thai food. Every suburb seems to have at least two or three Thai restaurants. We are so spoiled with high quality Thai food that I have been reluctant to make it at home. And when I have tried to make my favourite Thai dishes at home I have often been overwhelmed by the ingredients.

But this salad is a winner! It's so simple to make, does not require an intimidating list of obscure ingredients, and captures the five key flavours of Thai dishes (sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and bitter).

Ingredients

Simple Thai Salad

1 bunch coriander (cilantro), leaves only, roughly chopped*
1 bunch mint, leaves only, stalks and stems discarded, roughly chopped
1 lebanese cucumber, cut in half lengthways and then finely sliced**
1 small red onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 green onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
1 red capsicum (bell pepper), julienned (finely sliced into match sticks)
1 carrot, grated or julienned
1 generous handful (10-15) cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered (I have used tiny yellow tomatoes in the salad in the pic!)

Simple Thai Dressing

Juice of 2 limes
1 Tablespoon sweet chilli sauce OR 1 tablespoon Siracha chilli sauce plus 2 teaspoons maple syrup OR 1 finely diced chilli and 1 teaspoon honey
2-3 teaspoons of sesame oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce. If you don't have fish sauce, don't panic, just use 2 teaspoons of soy sauce

Method

Place all dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine. 

Place all salad ingredients in a large bowl.
Add Simple Thai Dressing.
Toss well to combine.

You can serve this salad with prawns (shrimp), chicken or tofu, and you can also toss through some thin rice noodles or kelp noodles.

* If you are a coriander (cilantro) avoider, you can leave out the coriander and just use extra mint and green onion - or you can give this salad a try! My husband HATES coriander, but he LOVES this salad! 

** Many Thai salad recipes recommend using a teaspoon to remove the cucumber seeds before slicing. By all means do this if you want to, but I find it too fiddly, and leaving the seeds in really doesn't make any difference to my salad.