Vietnamese Chicken Rice Noodle Salad

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

5 from 2 votes

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Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 5 mins

Course Dinner, Lunch

Cuisine South East Asian, Vietnamese

Servings 4 people

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!

Keyword Fish sauce, Healthy, Noodles, Salad, Vietnamese