This Thai crunch salad is an incredible mix of fresh flavors and crunchy textures, all tossed in the BEST creamy peanut dressing.
About This Recipe
This is not your average salad recipe! It's a rainbow of ingredients that make every bite bold, flavorful, and perfectly crunchy.
The dressing for this salad is also a recipe that you'll want to keep forever: the peanut sauce is creamy, salty, and sweet. Once you try it on this salad you'll want to put it on everything.
One of the best parts of this recipe is that it tastes even better as leftovers! The flavors marinate and strengthen in the fridge. This means that you can make a big batch and enjoy it for a few days or as meal prep for your week.
Ingredient Notes
Here's a few popular ingredient substitutions and additions for this recipe:
- Coleslaw: short on time? Swap in a coleslaw mix (3 cups) instead of chopping up the Napa cabbage, green cabbage, and carrot.
- Edamame: if you can't find fresh edamame, cook or microwave a frozen bag.
- Peanut butter: an all natural, creamy peanut butter works best for this recipe. Almond butter could also be substituted.
- Protein: you can add a protein like shredded chicken, shrimp, tofu, etc. to this recipe if you like!
This recipe is easy to make your own — feel free to add more of what you love and leave out what you don't!
Frequently Asked Questions
The peanut dressing has a very mild spice level from the Sriracha sauce (2 teaspoons). To make it less spicy, leave this out; to make it more spicy, add more.
The thickness of your sauce may vary depending on the type of peanut butter that you use. Add more soy sauce, sesame oil, or water to make it thinner. And leave out some of the soy sauce and sesame oil to make it thicker.
This salad is best served cold. It can be a main course or a side dish. If you like, you could also add a meat or tofu option to it (shredded chicken, shrimp, crispy tofu, etc).
Storage
Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. This recipe keeps well...it will lose some of it's crunchy texture after the first day but the flavors will marinate and become stronger in the fridge.
Similar Recipes
If you love this recipe, we know you'll fall in love with these similar Thai-inspired ones: Thai Noodle Salad and Asian Slaw with Peanut Dressing.
And if you want to make a batch of the dressing to keep on hand, here's the recipe: Thai Peanut Salad Dressing.
Thai Crunch Salad
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This Thai crunch salad is an incredible mix of fresh flavors and crunchy textures, all tossed in the BEST creamy peanut dressing.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Napa cabbage, shredded*
- 1 cup red cabbage, shredded
- 2 carrots, shredded
- 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
- 1 cup edamame
- 1 cup diced cucumber
- 5 green onions, sliced
- ⅓ cup chopped cilantro
- ½ cup roughly chopped cashews
- Sesame seeds, optional for topping
Sweet & Spicy Peanut Dressing:
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter
- ¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 lime, juiced
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (or honey)
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons sriracha (or more, if preferred for spice)
Instructions
- Add all of the salad ingredients to a large bowl.
- In a small bowl, stir together the ingredients for the dressing. Add water, if needed, to thin the dressing. Drizzle the dressing on top of the salad and toss to mix.
- Optionally, sprinkle with sesame seeds and more chopped cashews before serving.
Notes
*You can also use 3 cups of coleslaw mix in place of the Napa cabbage, red cabbage and carrot.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Category: Main Course
- Method: No Bake
- Cuisine: Thai Inspired
Keywords: thai, chopped, salad, cabbage, carrots, peanut dressing, edamame, cashews, meal prep
Charlotte Noelle
This looks so good! I can’t wait to make it!
★★★★★
Regina
Can you please tell me how to find the nutrition facts for the salads?
TCB
There are recipe calorie calculators that you can use. Here is one that just needs the url to the recipe.
https://whisk.com/recipe-nutrition-calculator/
Katee
This was amazing! My husband and I are trying to lose weight so I’m committed to trying new salad meals once a week at least. This was my favourite so far. I’m not vegetarian so I added shrimp and it was a great addition!
Megan
So glad that you enjoyed it!! Love the idea to add shrimp 🙂
Kimberly
Delicious! Just made it and added some rotisserie chicken to it for main dish salad- it was fantastic. Thanks for the recipe!
★★★★★
Megan
Sounds delicious! Thanks for trying the recipe & so glad you enjoyed it!
Kathleen Bonner
Can you post the nutritional information?