Tangy, salty, and sweet crunchy thai beef salad is a fresh, fragrant and light weeknight dinner, perfect for warm evenings when you have a hankering for thai takeaway, but want to keep to your healthy eating routine!
Season Steak: Add steak strips, garlic, ginger and soy sauce to a bowl and mix together
Cook Steak: Heat a non stick wok on high heat. (use a little spray oil if using a regular wok). Add beef strips and cook quickly, moving beef around the wok until its brown and cooked to your liking, then remove from heat and set aside.
Prepare Salad: Add salad ingredients to a large mixing bowl and toss to combine
Prepare dressing: add dressing ingredients to a small bowl or jug and whisk with a fork to mix together. (Don’t pour directly over salad. Serve on the side)
Prepare serving bowls: Evenly divide salad between two plates. Drain excess steak juices and place steak strips on top on top of salad, and spoon over the dressing. You may like to give it a gently toss with hands or two forks. Garnish with additional fried noodles and coriander/cilantro.
Notes
Steak: Rib fillet, eye fillet, flank steak, sirloin steak are all good options. Slicing the strips the same size will ensure it cooks evenly.
Fried Noodles: I used Changs fried noodles 100 gram packet, however there are several different varieties of fried noodles available in the asian aisle of the supermarket.
Garlic, ginger and soy sauce: these act as a marinde and seasoning for the steak and add to the flavour of the dish. This step can be skipped, but you’ll be missing out on extra flavour and taste in the salad
Lettuce Leaves: Butter lettuce, Gem lettuce, are the best. I find that the packets of loose lettuce leaves from the supermarket are ideal. Failing that use whatever lettuce you have on hand.
Mango: Make sure the mango you use is ripe and sweet as it will counteract the heat of the chilli in the dressing
Tomatoes: I love using mini cherry tomatoes, however regular cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered are great, and alternatively you could also use a regular tomato chopped into small chunks
Red Onion: provides a savoury note to the dish as well as some crunch
Cucumber: provides crunch and freshness. I like to use Lebanese cucumber as it has a softer skin than most.
Mint: fresh mint leaves roughly chopped are ideal
Corriander/Cilantro: fresh and roughly chopped, both in the salad, and to garnish
Thai Basil: this adds a peppery note to the salad and additional flavour, however if you can’t find it, you could use regular basil or leave it out and the salad will still taste great.
Sweet chilli Sauce: I like to use “Light Sweet Chilli Sauce” which is a lower calorie option that the regular varieties as it has a lot less sugar. Its available usually along side the Asian sauces at supermarkets.
Lime: nothing beats fresh lime juice in a thai salad dressing. A squeeze over the salad to serve is also great.
Dressing the Salad: Make sure to spoon over the salad dressing, rather than pour it directly on as too much dressing will make the noodles go soggy. As the dressing is so flavourful, only a little is needed.
Leftover Dressing: You will probably end up with more dressing than you need, but you can store leftovers in a jar with lid for upto a week and its great to use as a stir fry sauce and over grilled fish or salmon