Thai beef salad

Thai beef salad makes a delicious and easy meal for those nights when you don't want to spend much time in the kitchen. It's simply a matter of putting together a few greens, frying a piece of steak, and dressing it all in a delicious Thai-flavoured dressing.

My grandson and his wife went on holiday to Thailand recently and sent me photos of the delicious food they were eating there. One of them was for a Thai beef salad, and I took one look, and thought 'Oh I could eat that'.

So after much searching on the internet for Thai beef salads, I came up with this recipe which is a conglomeration of lots of recipes, with ingredients to suit my own taste.

The base of the salad is made with lovely crisp greens plus sweet cherry tomatoes, crispy cucumber and red onions.

Then there is a delicious salad dressing which is packed with the herby flavours of fresh coriander, mint and basil along with a few aromatics such as fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and chilli. Half of the dressing is mixed with the crispy greens, and the other half is drizzled over the beef once it has been cooked

The beef is simply a piece of sirloin steak which is flash-fried for 2 to 3 minutes per side (depending on thickness) and then sliced and arranged on top. In my opinion, the only way to eat a good piece of sirloin is medium rare, which is what you get with this method. If you prefer your beef to be more well-done you can cook it for 3 to 4 minutes per side, but don't blame me if it's tough 🙂

The whole lot is then drizzled with the remaining salad dressing and topped with crushed peanuts.

And the result is a delicious Thai beef salad, packed with punchy flavours, that probably only takes half an hour in total, but tastes like you've spent hours in the kitchen.

I like to serve it with a dish of Thai vegetable rice, but you could simply serve it with a slice of crusty garlic bread if you're in a real hurry to get a meal on the table.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Tips for a successful outcome
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Save for later
• Related recipes
• 📋The recipe

Ingredients

This recipe will serve 2 to 3 people, but you can easily scale it up by using more steak and doubling the sauce and salad ingredients.

This looks like a lot of ingredients, but most of them are for the salad!

• Sirloin steak - I like to use sirloin for this recipe because it is to tender. You can substitute with a different cut of steak that is suitable for frying, such as rump, porterhouse or rib eye. The steak should be about ¾-inch in thickness

Salad

• Mixed salad leaves - you want a mixture of different types of salad leaves. I sent hubby to the shop to get me a bag and he came back with this one which not only contained lettuce leaves but also finely shredded carrots and red cabbage. It was fine - it all added to the flavour!
• Romaine lettuce - depending on how much mixed salad you have you may want to leave this out - I added it for extra crunch because I love the crispy leaves. You could substitute with baby gem lettuce.
• Cucumber - I like to remove the seeds from the cucumber but you don't have to if you don't want to. The cucumber should be thinly sliced.
• Red onion - should be peeled and thinly sliced. Substitute with shallots - I think normal white onion would have too sharp a flavour.
• Cherry tomatoes - depending on the size I cut them into halves or quarters.
• Fresh coriander, mint and basil - these are used to make the dressing, but I also tear up a few of each and mix them into the salad leaves.

Dressing

• Chilli - this is where the heat comes from - you can use whatever chilli your tastebuds can handle. I used a mild red chilli.
• Fish sauce - fish sauce is a blend of salt and fermented fish or shellfish, normally anchovies, prawns or mackerel. Don't be put off by the smell of the fish sauce in the bottle, once mixed with other ingredients it adds a deliciously salty and umami flavour to the dish and doesn't taste fishy at all.
• Brown sugar - for a touch of sweetness.
• Lime juice - adds the sour element.
• Peanuts - these are sprinkled onto the finished dish as a garnish. I prefer to use unsalted peanuts so as not to introduce extra salt to the dish. The peanuts should be finely chopped. You can leave these out if you wish.
• Groundnut oil- I forgot to add this to the photo, but you will need a small amount of groundnut or peanut oil for the dressing. You can substitute with sunflower oil or other neutral flavoured oil.

**You can find the exact ingredient measurements you will need to make this Thai beef salad on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**

Instructions

Tips for a successful outcome

Here are my top tips to ensure that your Thai beef salad always turns out perfectly.

• I cooked my steak in a frying pan. If you prefer to grill it or even barbeque it that will be fine. Just remember not to overcook the steak. It will continue to cook as it rests.
• On that note, it is important to rest the steak once it has cooked to give the juices time to settle back in the meat. If you slice the meat the moment it comes out of the pan you will find your chopping board is covered in meat juice, which means your meat will be dry and tough.
• When slicing the steak, slice it across the grain so that you cut through the long fibres - if you slice it in the direction that the grain runs the meat will be tough and chewy.
• If you don't have a pestle and mortar you can make the dressing by chopping everything very finely with a sharp knife. Chop everything as finely as you can, and then chop some more! You don't want large pieces of chilli in the dressing.
• When mixing the dressing, taste and adjust the flavours. If it needs more saltiness, add extra fish sauce; for more sweetness add another pinch of sugar; for extra sourness, add another squeeze of lime juice.
• Once the dressing has been made, spoon half of it over the salad leaves and toss them very well to coat each salad leaf with dressing.
• After arranging the slices of steak on the salad, drizzle them with the remainder of the dressing before sprinkling with chopped peanuts.

Variations

You can add other ingredients to the salad. Why not try adding some of the following for extra crunch:

• chopped spring onions (scallions)
• sliced sugar snap peas
• julienned carrots
• a handful of crunchy beansprouts

For a more garlicky dish why not add a clove of chopped garlic to the pestle and mortar when grinding up the dressing ingredients.

You can also make this dish with chicken instead of beef.

Equipment

You will need a frying pan or griddle pan for cooking the steak.

You will also need a pestle and mortar for grinding the dressing ingredients. Failing that, a sharp knife and a chopping board.

Storage

This salad is best eaten when freshly made.

Because the salad has been coated with dressing, it will be inclined to turn limp and unappealing the next day.

This recipe is not suitable for freezing.

If you want to make this dish ahead of time:

• make the dressing and store it in a screw-top jar.
• chop the peanuts and store them in a plastic bag.
• store the lettuce, herbs and sliced onions in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
• do not cut the tomatoes or cucumber until you are ready to assemble the salad.
• fry the steak when you are ready to make the dish and leave it to rest while you assemble the salad.

Save for later

If you would like to make this Thai beef salad, why not save the recipe to one of your Pinterest boards so you can find it easily? Just click on the image below.

Alternatively, you can save the recipe by clicking on the floating heart icon on the right-hand side of the screen.

Related recipes

Visit my Asian-inspired recipe page for other recipes. Here are a few Thai recipes you might enjoy:

📋The recipe

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