Thai Beef Salad | Summer of Love Thai Beef Salad Recipe

Thai Beef Salad – there are some salads you eat that you literally feel your body thanking you for. That’s exactly how I feel when I’m diving into a bowl of my Thai Beef Salad.

Crunchy, fresh, zesty, nostalgic flavours of Thailand and Vietnam this is the perfect summer of love salad recipe. I’ve no idea why I’ve called it summer of love salad; I just kinda like the sound of it and fancy myself as a bit of a hippy now and again.

I’m not going to bang on about this; but I really miss travelling around Asia and the food was a massive part of that experience, which is where my Thai beef salad recipe was inspired from.

I can still remember to this day the first time I entered a food market in Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam, sitting down on a slightly small white plastic chair alongside a food stall and diving into a papaya salad.. It was love at first bite.

Some Asian food just has a purity to it that feels good for the soul.

My Thai beef salad is a great leftovers recipe – especially if you have leftovers from your Sunday roast beef! I must admit that I really enjoy this salad when the beef is still rare which is fine as we cook our roast beef rare to medium anyway.. But don’t confuse this dish with being only fit for leftovers.

I’ve often bought a lovely piece of sirloin steak just to make this salad as it’s utterly delicious.  The chilli is also a bit of a must have for this dish, so for those of you that like it hot, and I mean SCREAMING HOT, then this is the perfect recipe to pump up the chilli quota as the chilli is perfectly in balance with the rest of the flavours.

However, if your household is like mine this is how the Chilli scale equates;

x2 children = no chilli

x1 wife = little hint of chilli

x1 geezer (me!) = lots of chilli

I tend to make everything and just garnish with chilli so everyone can vary their own heat.

I should also make a note on the Thai Salad Dressing I’ve used – it’s well nice, I love it. This dressing is a fairly classic combo of Asian ingredients so if you want to make a vegetarian thai salad just swap the beef for shredded papaya or some fried strips of aubergine (or baby aubergine if you can get it).

Thai Beef Salad – Ingredients (serves 4):

2 sirloin steaks (substitute for rump for a less expensive option)

375 gms fresh rice noodles (I use the pre-cooked fresh rice noodles, you could buy dried and cook first)

240 gms fresh baby spinach (1 small bag)

300 gms fresh beanshoots

80 gms fresh coriander – roughly chopped (save the stalks for the dressing below)

80 gms fresh mint – roughly chopped

80 gms fresh watercress leaves

1/2 cucumber cut into strips (tip. use a potato peeler to create ribbons but stop when you reach the watery center of the cucumber).

Thai Salad Dressing Recipe:

Juice of 2 limes

Fish sauce – equal amount to lime juice (about 50ml)

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 red chilli finely sliced (can use as garnish as mentioned earlier)

2 inches ginger – grated

2 cloves garlic – grated

coriander stalks (see above)

2 tablespoons palm sugar or jaggery or 1 tablespoon of demerara sugar

Tablespoon sesame seeds for garnish

Add all the dressing ingredients into a jar,and shake well to combine.

Thai Beef Salad Method:

1. Prepare your steak: Fry steak to medium rare and rest while you make the dressing (below). After resting the steak thinly slice (about 5mm thick) across the width of the steak.
2. Assemble salad: Thoroughly mix all salad ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Pour dressing over salad and mix through. Place the salad into individual serving bowls shaking off any excess dressing.
4. Place the sliced steak in the leftover dressing and coat well.
5. Place 5 slices of steak on top of each bowl of salad (or evenly distribute), garnish with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

Place a mouthful in your gob, close your eyes, inhale, hold, exhale. Open your eyes, smile. Nuff said.