
Quick Thai mango salad
Quick and easy, this Thai mango salad can be adapted in loads of ways, including your choice of protein, herbs, crunchy veg, depending on what you have lying around.
While most of this salad is thoughtless and easy, the trick is the mango – This isn’t a green mango salad, but at the same time try not to get mangoes that are gloriously soft and sticky – find the greenest mango you can of the ones the supermarket is selling, which should be pale yellow and slightly sweet and crunchy inside – skip any that feel soft when you pick them up, or have a sweet ripe odour.

The dressing is amazing and super versatile – works well as a dipping sauce for all sorts of things, and don’t be scared at all the fish sauce – it’s beautifully balanced out by the lime juice and sugar. Loads of super bold flavours here!
Quick Thai mango salad
Course: salad, main courseCuisine: Thai, Vietnamese4
servings20
minutesQuick, bold, delicious – What’s not to love?
Ingredients
- Dressing
4 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 garlic clove, mashed or grated
1cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1/2 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
- Salad veg
2 carrots, julienned
1 semi-ripe mango, peeled and julienned
1/4 Chinese cabbage, shredded
1 red onion, finely sliced
100g mangetout or sugar snap peas, sliced
100g rice vermicelli, cooked according to packet instructions (or soaked in salted boiling water for 5 minutes)
Protein of choice – We used some smoked fish, but use what you have on hand – Tofu, chick peas, cooked chicken/fish/pork, grilled tempeh, seitan, etc etc
Toasted sesame seeds or roughly chopped salted peanuts to top
Directions
- Mix all the marinade ingredients together.
- Put the onions in a bowl with 1/2 tsp of salt and some lemon juice, mix well and get chopping on your other ingredients. This pickles the onions and makes them less sharp.
- Toss everything together, mix in the dressing and mix well to coat, and serve immediately topped with sesame seeds or peanuts.