I need to emphatically declare that there is nothing more refreshing on a sweltering hot day than this salad. Nor anything tastier or better for you. I always alter my recipe slightly from Nigella’s in that I use 2 Lebanese cucumbers in place of the white cabbage and I used 1 monster sized carrot. Cucumber, of course is known for being cooling and I feel this adds substantially to the recipe’s heat-beating properties. You can make this a few hours ahead and store in the fridge where it will be just perfect to eat when you are hungry.
I always double the quantities for the sauce and omit the oil. I don’t feel like the taste suffers one jot without it but more of this perfectly balanced sauce can only be a good thing.
Vietnamese chicken and mint salad
For the dressing (this is for double the amount of dressing than what Nigella suggests)
- 1-2 chili, preferably a bird’s eye chili, seeded and chopped finely
- 2 fat garlic gloves peeled and finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 teaspoons rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons lime juice
- 3 tablespoons fish sauce
For the Salad
- 1 medium onion finely sliced
- 2 medium sized Lebanese cucumbers shredded grated
- 1 large carrot grated
- 200g cooked chicken breast, shredded or cut into fine strips
- fat bunch of mint, about 40g stemmed weight
- black pepper
1. In a bowl, combine the dressing ingredients and put aside for half an hour, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2. In a big bowl, mix the salad ingredients. Pour over the chili flecked dressing and toss very well-so that everything is combined and covered. Taste to see whether you need salt or pepper. Serve on a flat plate with maybe a bit more mint chopped on top
Serves 2 as a main dish or 4 as a starter.
Recipe adapted from Nigella Bites by Nigella Lawson
8 Comments | Add your own
I’m a huge fan of Vietnamese salad!! Actually come to think of it, I’m a huge fan of vietnamese food
Hi Popeye-It’s great isn’t it. I can’t think of anything that I’ve tried and not liked (except for a Durian shake that I tried once).
What a gorgeous salad! I’m a huge fan of Vietnamese food, pho being my first love, but the chicken salad is a very close second
Hi Ellie-Why thankyou!
Vietnamese food is just so lovely and delicious and I love the fresh flavours!
I know I’d love this salad!
With my husband not being a fan of coleslaw (because of the raw cabbage)..and hating cucumber.. I think this one would just be for me!
Anyone would think he was a fussy eater by the amount of times I mention what he doesn’t like.. and he isn’t really… (as in, I know fussier people). He has a wide palate.. with some specific dislikes. Cucumber/cabbage.. passionfruit/mango.
Peanut butter/coffee flavoured anything (but loves drinking coffee).
Anyway.. I would tone down the mint in this. I love it..but not in abundance.
When I eat a crunchy salad.. especially one with some meat in it.. I feel satisfied more easily.
Hi Maria-Ahhh well this one is really low in fat but full of fresh flavour so I think it would be great for you!
Hehe your husband doesn’t sound anywhere near as fussy as my hubby who grumbles when he has to eat cakes and biscuits-he grew up eating fruit and never ate cake (cakes when they were young were frozen bananas shaped into a cake). I have a friend who doesn’t like melted cheese, unmelted is fine but melted is a nono but Pizza is fine! Do you have any food aversions/dislikes? I just don’t like raw eggs, aspic and Durian or foul smelling food.
I too adore meat and salad together and yes a crunch is always much more satisfying!
Hi Lorraine,
Just replying to your question about specific food dislikes. I’ve considered this question before when doing email questionnaire thingy’s. My response has been poorly prepared food. Too oily, overcooked, or sometimes “man-in-the-kitchen” food. I say that because my husband will cook things that he’ll love that my daughter and I will find foul. My late father had a knack for this too. They think more is more..whereas often less is more..as far as combining herbs/spices etc. So my husband will do scrambled eggs (overcooked) with chunks of raw capsicum and thick-cut onions, dried spices from the pantry, torn up pieces of bread thrown in and maybe last nights Hokkien noodle stirfry stirred in it too. Then he’ll pour sweet chilli sauce over the top and follow that with mashed banana in a bread roll because he’s still hungry.
I don’t like to eat anything with artificial sweetener.
Plain, individual meringues I will give a miss. (My meringue needs to be eaten with something complimentary).
Oh.. caramel slice I find too rich and sweet.. it makes me feel a bit ill when I eat it.
Cheap Woolworths sausages that are soooo fatty.. and garlicky. I love garlic..but I find lately I have trouble digesting my food if garlic is infused in fatty meat especially.
When buying mince I buy beef about 10% of the time.. the rest of the time I buy pork mince or lamb mince.
The square, uniform, processed bacon pieces from a supermarket deli, I’ll avoid. The kind you get on cheap bacon and cheese rolls as a topping?
Condensed soup in cans.
Pigs trotters (my parents used to make pigs trotters in aspic when I was growing up.. I’d come home and the fridge would be emptied..and the shelves filled with soup bowls full of the pigs trotters in that salty, pig-fat tasting jelly. The trotters would still have some singed hairs on them).
Dutch licorice.
A lot of prepackaged things made in Holland!
In the words of Jennifer Patterson (one of the Two Fat Ladies).. “If it’s Dutch, don’t buy it”… lol!
I think that’s about it Lorraine?!
Hi Maria-That’s very interesting about your dislikes. I must say that I wonder if those bacon pieces are actual bacon on those bacon and cheese rolls. Their texture is totally different to bacon! I also find condense soup in cans tastes very tinny, especially cream of chicken. Although I do not mind tinned corn if it’s the super sweet variety.
Oh dear, the idea of finding pigs trotters in aspic with hairs still on them taking over my fridge now would be a little frightening, let alone that happening to a child! You poor thing!
I had no idea about the Dutch food but good to know!
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