Chopped Thai Salad with Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette

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This Chopped Thai Salad with Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette is just bursting with crunch and incredible flavors! It’s everything a salad should be — flavorful, healthy and NOT BORING! Life is too short to eat boring salads, people!

Thai salad in a bowl with peanut vinaigrette, a fork and spoon

As the weather gets warmer, I LOVE a good salad. And when I say “good” I mean my salads have to be fun, delicious and interesting! Is that too much to ask?? I don’t LOVE salad in general, so it really has to be a recipe that gets me excited and sit down to a bowlful of veggies! A few other salads that get me excited are this Quinoa Arugula Salad with Chicken and my Summer Roll Noodle Bowl….which TECHNICALLY isn’t a “salad.” per se, but it has lots of veggies so we’ll just call it like I see it.

This Chopped Thai Salad with Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette does not disappoint. Full of chicken, crunchy veggies (that can totally be customized!), peanuts and an amazing spicy peanut dressing!

Close up on chopped thai salad

HOW TO MAKE THIS CHOPPED THAI SALAD WITH SPICY PEANUT VINAIGRETTE

This salad takes a little chopping, but it’s pretty easy!

  • Make the dressing: I like to start by whisking together all the ingredients for the dressing. Warming the peanut butter for about 20-30 seconds in the microwave really helps make it easier to whisk and incorporate into the dressing.
  • Prep the veggies: Huge time savers are buying already chopped baby kale and pre-shredded carrots! You can also use a bag of slaw if you don’t want to cut the purple cabbage and save even more time!
  • Chop the chicken: I use either rotisserie chicken or leftover grilled chicken for this recipe-makes it super easy! You can also cook chicken breasts in a pan using my fool proof method! Forget to thaw your chicken breasts? No problem! You can cook frozen chicken breasts in the air fryer!
  • Dressing and peanuts: Pour the dressing over the salad and top with peanuts!
  • Chill (optional): This isn’t necessary, but I like to chill the salad for about 30 minutes before serving it. It allows the dressing to slightly soften the kale and absorb into the other veggies.
Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette on a spoon

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What additions and substitutions can I make to this salad?

Sky’s the limit with veggies for this salad! Use whatever you have on hand-this is a great salad to “clean out the veggie drawer!” Some of my faves are:

  • Cucumber
  • Bagged slaw mix in place of the purple cabbage
  • Chopped spinach in place of the kale
  • Other colors of bell peppers
  • Mint
  • Radishes

How do I store this chopped Thai salad?

This salad stores really well in an airtight container in the fridge. It will store up to 3-4 days, making it perfect for meal prepping! I would just hold off on adding the dressing until you are ready to serve it (or about 30 minutes before).

Can I make the peanut vinaigrette more or less spicy?

The dressing isn’t overly spicy, depending on the type of red curry paste you get–I use Taste of Thai and it’s not over-the-top spicy at all. If it’s a bit too much though, just reduce the amount of curry paste by half or leave it out all together.

To make it a bit more spicy, whisk in some red pepper flakes or a teaspoon of sriracha into the dressing!

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Chopped Thai Salad in a big salad bowl

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I hope you love this Chopped Thai Salad! If you make it be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked it. Enjoy, xo!

Chopped Thai Salad with Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette

Casey Rooney
This salad is full of delicious crunchy veggies, chicken and topped with an addicting peanut dressing! It keeps well in the fridge so it's perfect for lunchtime meal preps!
4.72 from 7 votes
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 0 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Course Dinner, lunch, Salad
Cuisine Asian, thai
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

For the salad

  • 2 cups cooked chicken, chopped (rotiserre chicken works perfectly!)
  • 3-4 cups baby kale, chopped (See Note 1)
  • 2-3 cups purple cabbage, chopped (See Note 1)
  • 1 red bell pepper, chopped (See Note 1)
  • 1 cup shredded carrots (pre-shredded is easiest!)
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 1/2 cup peanuts

For the spicy peanut vinaigrette

  • 2 tbsp peanut butter (any kind is fine!)
  • 4 tbsp lime juice
  • 4 tbsp honey
  • 4 tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 4 tsp Thai red curry paste (See Note 2)
  • 4 tbsp oil (See Note 3)

Instructions
 

  • Make the dressing: In a small microwave-safe bowl, microwave peanut butter for about 20 seconds. This will make it easier to whisk into the dressing. Then, add all other dressing ingredients and whisk together until everything is nicely combined.
  • Assemble all other ingredients in a large salad bowl. Toss with the dressing. You can either serve the salad immediately or refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the dressing to fully absorb into the veggies.

Notes

Note 1: For this chopped salad, I like all the veggies to be roughly the same size. For the baby kale, just give it a rough chop out of the bag so it’s in smaller pieces that are easier to eat 🙂
Note 2: Thai red curry paste can be found at most regular grocery stores in the Asian section. If you don’t want the dressing to be spicy, feel free to leave it out. 
Note 3: Olive oil is fine but I prefer to use a non “flavorful” oil such as vegetable oil for this dressing.
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4 Comments

  1. This is such a tasty looking salad. I love the varieties of flavors and textures in it. It’s not boring like most regular salads are!