Thai Chicken Salad

Why This is the Best Recipe

Dinner salads are such a fantastic option on a busy night when you feel like your family has been eating too much take out and you want to right the balance with plenty of fresh veggies. I think this is the best Thai chicken salad recipe because:

1. Quick and Easy: You can bake the chicken thighs fresh or substitute a rotisserie chicken in a pinch.
2. Short List of Ingredients: The Thai sauce requires a few pantry items you can stock up and just keep on hand. The rest of the salad is very flexible and can be made with vegetables from your fridge.
3. No Salad Dressing: I purposely skipped the salad dressing on this recipe to lighten things up. There is plenty of Thai sauce on the chicken to add lots of flavor to the salad. I added a generous drizzle of it to each salad bowl when serving. If you really want to add a salad dressing, drizzle a light lime vinaigrette over the top.

Ingredients

To make the easy Thai sauce for the chicken, you'll need a few pantry ingredients:

• Sweet Chili Sauce: This ingredient will be found in the International foods section of your grocery store, near the other Thai foods. This is not the American chili sauce like you would use for making cocktail sauce.
• Soy Sauce: I used tamari because I had it on hand. Either one will work fine.
• Sriracha Sauce
• Minced Garlic
• Dried Ginger
• Sesame Oil
• Fish Sauce

For the rest of the salad you will also need:

• Cooked Chicken: I recommend baking boneless, skinless chicken thighs fresh before assembling the salad. But in a pinch on a busy night, you could also shred a rotisserie chicken and toss it in the homemade Thai sauce.
• Romaine Lettuce
• Shredded Carrots
• Fresh Cilantro
• Chopped Peanuts
• Fresh Limes

Bake the Chicken Thighs

I love the texture and flavor of fresh baked chicken thighs for this recipe. You could be chopping the lettuce while the chicken cooks, this step is just so easy.

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Place the chicken thighs in a 9x13-inch baking dish in a single layer. Season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper.

Bake for 30 minutes, turning the chicken over half way through baking.

The chicken thighs are done when they register 165°F with an instant read thermometer.

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

Make the Thai Sauce

Stir all the ingredients for the Thai sauce together in a large saucepan.

Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook for just 3 minutes. This ensures the garlic is cooked and the flavors have a chance to mingle.

Add the chopped chicken to the saucepan and turn to coat in the sauce.

Thai Chicken Salad Toppings

This easy dinner salad was something I whipped together on a very busy night with items I had in my fridge.

On top of the bed of chopped romaine and shredded carrots, I also added fresh cilantro, fresh green onions, and chopped roasted peanuts for crunch.

I served the lime wedges on the side for squeezing over the salad at the dinner table.

If you want to add even more flavor to your dish and happen to have some of these items in your fridge, you could also add:

• Chopped Bell Peppers: Red or green bell peppers would be excellent choices.
• Shredded Cabbage Slaw: Purple or green cabbage mix would add tons of crunch.
• Chopped Red Onion: If green onions are too mild for you, add fresh chopped red onion for more punch.
• Yellow Sweet Corn: Thaw a bag of frozen sweet corn and add the corn kernels to the salad mix for a touch of sweetness.

NOTE: You may have noticed that this recipe does not include a salad dressing. I wanted a dish that was lighter for my family so we skipped it. There is plenty of sauce on the Thai chicken, we didn't even miss it.

That said, if your family really wants a salad dressing over the lettuce, you could toss the salad with a store bought lime vinaigrette.

Variations

The sweet and spicy Thai sauce would actually be delicious with these simple variations:

Thai Shrimp Salad: Substitute a batch of my air fryer shrimp instead of the baked chicken thighs.

Breaded Thai Chicken Salad: Toss a batch of baked breaded chicken nuggets into the homemade Thai sauce. We love the frozen chicken nuggets from Costco. You could even bake them in the air fryer to make it go faster.

Serving Suggestions

This lighter dinner salad is very low carb and would be gluten free if you used a gluten free soy sauce in the Thai sauce.

For a heartier dinner, I served it with toasted naan breads cut into triangles on the side.

You could also top the salad with crispy wonton strips from the salad toppings section of the grocery store if you want more crunch.

Make Ahead Tips

The Thai chicken salad tastes best when the chicken is warm and the lettuce is cold.

If you want to meal prep this dish for work week lunches or an easy dinner for later in the week, you could bake the chicken and toss it in the Thai sauce.

Store that separately in a container in the fridge and just reheat it in the microwave.

Prep the salad vegetables and store them separately. Just assemble the hot chicken and cold salad right before serving.

What to Do with Leftover Thai Chicken

Even if you only want to scale the dinner for fewer servings, I highly recommend baking the entire batch of chicken thighs and Thai sauce because you can freeze the leftover chicken for other dinners later.

Make Thai chicken rice bowls over a bed of jasmine rice with roasted peppers and pineapple.

Use a little leftover chicken to make Thai chicken pizza with naan bread crusts.

Or turn the chicken into Thai chicken tacos using my baked chicken tacos method. Top the tacos with shredded cabbage, fresh cilantro, and chopped peanuts.

More Dinner Salad Recipes

Looking for more entree salads to serve for family dinner? Don't miss these popular recipes: