Larb Gai - Thai Chicken Salad

Submitted by Gillian Spence

"Occasionaly served warm in restaurants, I prefer the room temperature version. Use leftover roast chicken, or ready cooked barbecued chicken for convenience. You can find the ingredients in Thai or some oriental markets"

 

• Ready In: 40mins
• Ingredients: 14
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• 1 large chicken breast
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 tablespoon roasted rice powder
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne powder (or to taste)
• 2 tablespoons green onions, sliced
• 3 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 limes, juice of
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons finely sliced red onions
• cabbage, quartered with tough middle removed
• mint leaf (to garnish)

directions

1. Grill or broil the chicken until just cooked through. Allow to cool and remove skin and bones. Chop the meat very finely. Use only the tender white portion of the lemon grass and cut into thin slices. Slice out the mid-ribs from the lime leaves and shred the leaf very finely.
2. Put the chopped chicken meat in a bowl and mix with the chopped lemon grass, shredded lime leaf, roasted rice powder, cayenne, scallions, mint, red onion and cilantro. Combine fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. Pour over the chicken mixture and combine well.
3. Serve with cabbage leaves and garnished with extra mint. To eat, pick up a cabbage leaf and "pinch" or roll up some chicken salad in it.

Reviews

[Jaudon]

This is excellent! I love ordering larb gai at my Thai restaurant, and this was easy to make at home. I used lime zest instead of kaffir leaves, and instead of wrapping in fresh cabbage, I served the chicken salad on a bed of wilted chopped cabbage. Thanks for the excellent recipe - this is a keeper!

 

[Garlic Chick]

Yum - yum. Made this recently and loved it. I made a few minor changes - I used sambal paste to add heat rather than cayenne and since I did not have lemongrass I used lemon zest (which I have done with other recipes with good results). I skipped the lime leaves altogether because I have found I do not like them. Rather than using the napa cabbage I wrapped mine in regular lettuce leaves - so good. I had a hard time finding the roasted rice powder, even at an Asian market - but so glad I gave it the effort to find it. What the roasted rice powder (called roasted rice flour on the package) did was to really help the chicken mixture to hold onto the dressing, and it gave it a great consistency. Thanks for posting, Gillian Spence, I love your recipe.

 

[One Happy Woman]

oh baby, oh baby, oh baby ... this was wonderful. to keep it low carb, I left out the rice powder and substituted liquid sucralose for the sugar. and leftover? throw it in the food processor with some celery and mayo - fabulous thai-flavored chicken salad.

 

[Aunt Cookie]

This was so good! I had tofu larb at a restaurant last week and wanted to see if I could copy it...this recipe worked really well. I used tofu instead of the chicken and brown sugar instead of the palm sugar; apart from that I followed the recipe closely. Next time I make it, I will probably use more fish sauce and more mint, but wouldn't make any other changes. This tastes really fresh! Thanks for posting.

 

[ssinderella]

I love larb gai and I made this recipe with a few adjustments (more cilantro, less fish sauce and thai chili's and sambal paste instead of cayenne). I also use red onions. This is so delicious and it is nice to see a recipe that actually uses lemongrass, rice powder and the kaffir lime leaves. That makes world of difference! Delicious and even better the second day..Thanks!