This is so easy to make and super healthy for you! The dressing here is Nuoc Cham which you’ll find in many of your favourite Vietnamese dishes.
I highly recommend including pickled carrots in your salad (as pictured below). Ideally, prepare this and the chicken the night before and leave it in the fridge to marinate/pickle overnight. If you can’t, 30 minutes of pickling/marinating the chicken should be fine too. It’s not short on flavour!
WATCH VIDEO: if you’re a visual learner, watch me make it here!
Vietnamese Chicken Rice Noodle Salad
Ingredients
Chicken
- 4 pieces of Chicken thighs (skinless, boneless)
- A thumbs worth Tumeric fresh/frozen whole preferred (vs. the spice)
- 2 stalks of Lemongrass white part (bottom of lemongrass)
- 1½ tablespoons Lime juice
- 2 tablespoons Brown, coconut or palm sugar
- 1 tablespoon Light soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons Fish sauce
- 2 cloves Garlic (minced)
- A pinch Salt
- 1 Chilli
- 2 Kaffir lime leaves
Rice Noodle Salad
- Lettuce and/or any mixed green salad
- Cucumber
- Carrots (pickled carrots highly recommended)
- Cabbage (pickled cabbage highly recommended)
- Bean sprouts
- Mint (Vietnamese mint if you can find it)
- Coriander
- Roasted peanuts for garnish
- Fried shallots for garnish
Vietnamese Dressing (Nuoc Cham)
- ¼ cup fish sauce
- 4 tablespoon white vinegar (or rice vinegar)
- ½ cup water
- 2 garlic cloves (finely diced)
- 3 lime juice
- 1 chilli (optional, finely sliced)
- ½ shallots (optional, for the aromatics)
- 1 tablespoon Sugar
Instructions
Overnight
- Make pickled vegetables and marinate the chicken at least an hour before cooking or overnight. To marinate the chicken, chop all vegetables finely and add to a blender (or pound using morter & pestle) until it becomes a paste like consistency. Then rub all over the chicken.
Prepare dressing and rice noodle salad
- To make your Nuoc Cham dressing, add all the ingredients together in a jar or bowl and set aside for later.
- Cook your rice noodles. Follow package instructions or cook by adding to a pot of boiling water for 2-5 minutes. Keep an eye on it – once it goes soft, remove immediately to prevent overcooking.
- Chop up your vegetables to make your salad. Set aside.
Cook chicken
- In a pan on medium heat, add oil. Add chicken. Cook one side until golden brown, and then flip to cook the other side too. This should take 5-10 minutes (depending on how big your chicken bits are). To test if your chicken is cooked, cut through a piece to have a look.
- When done cooking, remove from heat and set aside for a few minutes. Then slice into thin pieces.
Assemble
- In a bowl, add your rice noodles, salad, pickled carrots and chicken. I prefer to serve the sauce on the side! Garnish with roasted peanuts and fried shallots. Enjoy!
My favourite dish…made this tonight and it was sensational! So glad I found you!
Thank you sooo much! I’m glad you enjoyed it. Much love.
I just found you on TikTok.
Made this last night and it was soo delish!
Thank you and love all your videos ❤️❤️
Are you loyal to a particular brand of fish sauce and soy sauce? I’ve heard red boat is very good for soy but have not purchased yet. Please advise. Just discovered you today and I am adding many of your recipes to my Pinterest! Your style of recipes and ingredients speak to me!