Thai chicken and rice salad recipe

A fragrant chicken dish, bursting with delicate Thai flavours - a delicious weekday lunch or light supper.

This lovely Thai chicken and rice salad is quick and easy to make. You can cook the rice and chicken from scratch, and it's so delicious, it is worth doing this. However, this meal is especially brilliant for using up leftover rice or chicken that you've already cooked. If you had a Sunday roast, for example, you only need 500g leftover shredded meat. And it doesn't have to be prime breast meat - scraps from anywhere on the carcass will work. Likewise if you ordered too much rice with your takeaway, store it well overnight and you can use it in this the next day. This is one of our great healthy chicken recipes.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp peanut oil or vegetable oil
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 2 small red Thai chillies, de-seeded and chopped
• 4 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
• 600g (1¼lb) cooked jasmine rice (cook 200g/7oz rice to get this amount)
• 500g (1lb) cooked chicken, shredded
• 30g (1oz) fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped
• 30g (1oz) fresh coriander leaves
• 4 fresh kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced (or preserved lime leaves from jar)
• 30g (1oz) toasted, salted cashew nuts, optional

For the dressing:

• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Method

1. Prepare the lemongrass. Peel off the hard outer layers, trim the base, slice very finely then bash with a knife to bruise them and release the flavour and scent.
2. Heat a frying pan or wok over a fairly high heat. Add the oil, prepared lemongrass, chilli and spring onion, and cook for 2 mins. Set aside.
3. Put the rice, chicken, mint, coriander, lime leaves and warm lemongrass mixture into a bowl and toss gently to mix.
4. Whisk together the lime juice, sugar, fish sauce and sesame oil. Pour over salad and mix gently. Chill before serving, if preferred. Spoon salad into small bowls. Sprinkle with cashew nuts, if you like.

Top tip for making this Thai chicken and rice salad

Leftover turkey or pork would also work well in this recipe.

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