I don’t know about all of you, but after my weekend and the copious amount of calories ingested, I need some major detoxing! The only thing that sounds good right about now is a giant salad. And today is a two-for-one, so check out the post below this one for the other half to this recipe!
I’ve mentioned how much I love Kate’s Thai Peanut Noodles only about four-thousand times in the last year or so. I love them so much that I always overestimate how much I’ll eat and I end up making way more than my little family can handle. So then I put the extras in the fridge and I find myself sneaking back into the kitchen all night slurping cold noodles out of the container. The next day the huge container only has a small puddle of sauce with a few noodles in it and my husband always asks why have such a hard time estimating the size of tupperware I need when putting food away. What can I say? Apparently I’m just bad at estimating all together. Back to the cold noodle slurping though. I realized I really like those noodles cold. I also really love Asian inspired noodle salads which involves mixing a bunch of salad ingredients with some pasta and drenching it in a yummy dressing. It seems everyone has their own version and they all are pretty similar. I created mine to taste like the Thai Peanut Noodles so I can actually have this as a meal and get over the late-night cold noodle slurping habit.
This salad is awesome as a meal because it just combines everything in one pot. It’s a great luncheon salad for the same reason. I tested it out recently on a group of girlfriends (my girlfriends, not some random group of chicks like that kind of sounded like…) and they voted it a keeper. This is one of my new favorites and I think I’ll be making it a lot this summer because I love cold meals on hot days! All you vegetarians out there, just skip the chicken and you’ve got a nice hearty meal.
Start by bringing a pot of water to a boil. Add a spoonful of salt and then add your pasta. While pasta is cooking, start chopping those veggies.
You can really use any mix of veggies you want. I have a thing with rainbows, so whenever I make this type of salad I pick the vegetables purely based on color so I can have something in every shade of the rainbow. I think it makes for a happy salad and happy salad makes happy people. But use what you like, pretty much anything slathered in this dressing is going to taste good. For me, it’s this stuff:
See, happy right?? I mentioned you can play around with the leafy greens. I like to use both napa cabbage and romaine lettuce. If you’re eating this right away lettuce works great, and spinach is even good in there. However, if you’re taking it to a picnic, or serving it on a buffet or anything like that where it will sit a while, I recommend going heavy on the cabbage because it will stay nice and crunchy for ya.
As soon as your pasta is done drain it and run some cold water over it until it’s cool. If you’re not going to use it right away, add a drizzle of the salad dressing and stir to coat. This will prevent the noodles from getting all clumpy. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.
When you’re ready to assemble the salad, place noodles, veggies, and chicken in a large bowl.
Pour the Thai Peanut Dressing over everything, stirring as you go until you have enough to coat. I use it all!
Sprinkle peanuts on top and garnish with some cilantro if you want. And there you have one happy, pretty, and extremely delicious salad!
Thai Peanut Noodle Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounce Linguine Fini or regular linguine
- 4 cups shredded greens: any combo of napa cabbage romaine lettuce or even spinach
- 2 cup thinly sliced purple cabbage
- 1/2 red bell pepper thinly sliced
- 1/2 yellow pepper thinly sliced
- 1 medium carrot julienned
- 1/2 medium cucumber halved and sliced
- 1/4 of a red onion thinly sliced
- 3 cups diced grilled chicken
- honey roasted peanuts about 1/2 cup
- Thai Peanut Salad Dressing save some time and make this part ahead!
Instructions
- Boil noodles, then strain and rinse with cold water. (If you're not going to use it right away, add a drizzle of the salad dressing and stir to coat. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.)
- Toss noodles and veggies together and then toss with desired amount of dressing and serve.
Questions & Reviews
I just wanted to say I’ve been making this dressing for like over a decade and it’s the absolute most delicious dressing I’ve ever had. We use it in so many different ways and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t basically drink it every time I “taste test” it.
I have enjoyed making this receipt! I have come back to making it again and have found the link for the peanut dressing is not pulling up the receipt. Can you please send me the receipt or provide another link for the receipt?
I believe this is the recipe you are looking for: https://ourbestbites.com/2009/07/thai-peanut-dressing/ Good luck!
I just found this recipe and it sounds delicious, but the link to the dressing isn’t working. Is it just me? Could I get that please?!!
I’ve been asked to bring an Asian salad to a potluck. Host is grilling chicken.
Should I make any changes or additions if I omit the chicken to your recipe and do you think it would still taste good without the chicken?
stumbled across this receipe and it sounds fabulous!!!! Question – I avoid whea products – would it taste just as good without the noodles? Or I wonder what I could else I could add? I don’t eat any type of pasta (rice/corn/etc). Would love any thoughts – – thanks!!
Sure, you could just leave out the noodles, it would still taste great!
I just made the dressing- omg! Perfection!!! Making the salad tonight- already have a feeling it’s going to be a winner! I subbed the peanut butter w raw almond butter & it’s still amazing!
We’ve been eating a lot of salads from the OBB cookbooks lately and this one came up last night. It is amazing! My favorite so far. I used a Penzey’s Spice called Bangkok Blend to season chicken breasts and grilled them. It paired well with the peanut-y dressing. I will definitely be making this salad again! Thanks for yet another fantastic recipe. :o)
Made this for the 2nd time and it was a huge hit again! I think this is my favorite OBB recipe. Mmmm…
Anyone ever tried this with almond butter or sunflower nut butter instead of pb for the dressing? I LOVE the dressing as is, but my daughter is allergic to peanuts. Wonder how it would turn out with another nut butter..
This salad was AWESOME! The dressing could be eaten with a spoon.
I made this for dinner tonight. It was a home run! My husband said it tasted like a restaurant dish! Thanks gals, you never let me down:)
Thanks guys, this is fantastic! For some really crazy reason, I had every single ingredient on hand and this was fantastic! It got thumbs up from the hubs too (always a plus!). I was too lazy to make any chicken and I had some chik fil a tenders (they sell their platters 24 tenders for 24 bucks… paired with their wing sauce and I’m in heaven… but I digress) so I just threw those on top and it was great! You guys rock!
Just wondering why you use kosher salt. I try to use Real Salt or sea Salt to be healthier. Just wondering what the conversion is?
Love your recipes!!
Check out this post Melissa 🙂
Just made this tonight and it was great! The heads of cabbage at my grocery store were SO huge and I knew I wouldn’t be able to use them all up, so I just used a bag of coleslaw mix (green cabbage, red cabbage, carrots – already shredded, yes!) and tossed that with some shredded romaine. It worked great!
I absolutely love this salad. I was hesitant to make a lot not knowing if my family would like it. So I only put the sauce on a little of the salad. Later I was surprised to find out that my children were getting out the salad and then adding the sauce for a personal portion! Most everyone loved it! Thanks for a great recipe.
Made this tonight and it was quite possibly one of the tastiest meals ever made in my kitchen! SO good!
I eat 2-3 meals a day away from home and have been searching for YUMMY salads to make and eat at work! This is perfection! I Chopped veggies, and made 5 large salads. I divided the dressing up into smaller tupperware that I popped on top of the salads when I was ready to eat. I was impressed that it kept in the fridge for 6 days 🙂 Having one of these in the lunch box made the fast food on the way to work not even tempting at all! Thanks! Maybe someday I’ll have to try the noodles 🙂
We love this salad! Thank you!
I would like to print this recipe out for future reference, but the website won’t let me? I tried signing in under my google account, but once I did I was told I didn’t have permission to the site. Next I tried to go back and creat an account with your site, but can’t do it now because I’m in under my Google account… what should I do?
Thanks!
Becca, it’s not you, it’s me 🙂 That old link doesn’t exist anymore- I just need to format the recipe for printing. I don’t have time to do it right this second, but I will make myself a note to do it for ya! You can always copy and paste text though, that works out pretty well.