Thursday, August 12, 2010

Thai Chicken Noodle Salad

I went to dinner at my friend, Lizzie's house one night after she'd prepared some fancy spring rolls for her dinner group. She had all of the stuff left over, but didn't want to take the time to roll them up again, so she made a salad.... and it's become one my favorite staple dinners. So fresh and crunchy and summery.

This dressing from Trader Joe's is a must! So if you don't have a TJ's... good luck. But I'm sure there's another yummy peanut dressing out there... Lizzie did her salad with shrimp too... but I usually just do chicken. And I usually chop off that part that makes your skin crawl that I so kindly took a photo of above.... oops. And yuck.

Also from Trader's-- these are their "rice sticks"--- they're rice noodles and I always make like 100 times more than we need. A few noodles on your salad are a fun addition...


MINT! Maybe the most important ingredient. It just gives it that fresh Thai flavor so it's not just every other salad you make.

It's a salad--- and it's adapted from the spring rolls... and we've pretty much played telephone with it since I had it at Lizzie's... so I have no idea how far off I am from that real recipe... and I don't really DO recipes for food, especially a salad. But here's what goes in it.


Thai Chicken Noodle Salad

-Butter lettuce
-Shredded carrots (I cheat and buy a bag already shredded from Trader's)
-Julienned cucumber (sounds much too fancy, but you get the idea)
-Small handful of chopped fresh mint
-Avocado (I forgot to take a picture... and I always almost forget it, and I'm not sure if it is ever in Thai dishes, but what isn't better with avocado really?)
-Chopped grilled chicken- marinated in the peanut dressing
- And a handful of rice noodles

Toss in yummy, spicy, peanuty vinaigrette

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Lindsay Griffeth said...

sounds delish. i will be making this soon!

Kimberly said...

Yum! She made this a few months ago when we were visiting...I'd been wanting the recipe. I thought I remembered cilantro in it too...I don't know. I just remembered it being yummy :)