Thai Noodle Salad with the BEST EVER Peanut Sauce, loaded up with healthy veggies! This vegan salad is great for potlucks and Sunday meal prep and lasts up to 5 days in the fridge. Watch the video!
Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. ~Mary Oliver~
The other day I got a hankering for an old standby we used to have on the Mizuna menu, the vegetarian restaurant my friend Tonia and I started together way back when. Thai Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce. Here it’s made with rice noodles and a boatload of crunchy veggies- cabbage, carrots, bell pepper and radish, then tossed in the most flavorful, balanced Peanut Sauce ever!
This vegan Thai Noodle Salad is great made-ahead salad, and keeps well for 3-4 days in the fridge -perfect for midweek meals and lunches, or potlucks and gatherings. Top this with flavorful Sesame Ginger Tofu or baked chicken for added protein if you prefer. So delicious!
Yes, I may be biased – I’ve had many versions of Thai peanut sauce, here and throughout Thailand, but this Thai Peanut Sauce is still hands-down my all-time very favorite! Not too sweet, and perfectly balanced.
Expert Tip
The secret ingredient in this recipe is fresh orange juice, giving it a delicious brightness. I highly recommend making a double batch of the Thai Peanut Sauce to use with spring rolls or buddha bowls. If you are like me you will be eating it by the spoonful. It’s that good! (Also know that this works with almond butter too!)
How to make Thai Noodle Salad!
- Cook the noodles. It starts with 6 ounces of dry noodles. So here again, the salad is actually, by volume more veggies than noodles- my kind of salad! Use linguine, soba noodles, Pad Thai-style rice noodles, brown rice noodles or seriously any pasta you have in your pantry. I personally love rice noodles here.
- Prep the veggies and herbs. You’ll need 4 cups of shredded veggies- red cabbage, carrots, bell pepper, radishes, plus green onions, jalapeño, and cilantro (or basil) and place in a large bowl.
- Make the Peanut Sauce.
- Combine the noodles, veggies, herbs and peanut sauce in the mixing bowl.
- Garnish with toasted, crushed peanuts if you like! Or try this Peanut Chili Crunch!
- Add protein if you like: shredded or baked chicken, baked tofu, crispy tofu, or shrimp.
What veggies to use?
- red cabbage
- bell pepper
- carrots
- radishes
- cucumber
- jicama
- use any veggie that will stay crunchy in the salad for several days.
The light and creamy peanut sauce is a nice contrast.
Make this as spicy as you want. I love adding fresh, finely chopped jalapeño to the salad for a little added heat.
Toss it up and serve it in a serving bowl.
Garnish with the roasted crushed peanuts and chopped scallion at the end ( so they stay fresh and crunchy).
FAQS
- Peanut Allergy? Substitute almond butter and toasted slivered almonds!
- Making it ahead? Feel free to keep the noodles and veggies, separate from the dressing, crushed peanuts and herbs until ready to serve!
- Storage: This salad will keep 4-5 days in the refrigerator.
Healthy, delicious and filling- I love having this Thai Noodle Salad on hand for a quick healthy snack too!
Here is the Thai Noodle Salad topped with the Baked Sesame Ginger Tofu. My absolute favorite.
Hope you enjoy this vegan Thai Noodle Salad with Peanut Dressing. Make a batch on Sunday and have it throughout the week- you’ll love yourself for it- I promise!
More Asian Salads You’ll Love!
- 40 MAKE-AHEAD VEGAN SALADS!
- Vietnamese Noodle Salad
- Sesame Cabbage Noodle Salad
- Simply Suwanee’s Thai Glass Noodle Salad
- Easy Crunchy Asian Slaw
- Thai Crunch Salad with Peanut Ginger Dressing
- Soba Noodle Salad
- Asian Cucumber Salad
Hope you enjoy this one – please rate and share your comments below! Pinning and sharing is always appreciated too!
xoxo
More from Feasting At Home
Thai Noodle Salad | 60-sec video
Thai Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 15
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6-8
- Category: Vegan, Salad
- Method: Tossed
- Cuisine: Thai
- Diet: Vegan
Description
A simple delicious recipe for Thai Noodle Salad with Peanut Sauce, loaded up with healthy veggies. Vegan and Gluten free, this make-ahead salad is perfect for midweek lunches or large gatherings. Add Sesame Ginger Tofu for added protein! Watch the video.
Ingredients
- 6 ounces dry noodles (brown rice noodles, pad thai style rice noodles, soba noodles, linguini)
- 4 cups mix of red cabbage, carrots and radish, shredded or grated
- 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
- 3 scallions, sliced
- 1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped (or sub basil and mint)
- 1 tablespoon (or less, or more) jalapeño, finely chopped
- 1/4–1/2 cup roasted, crushed peanuts ( optional garnish)
Thai Peanut Sauce (You may not need all- so save extras for another use.)
- 5 thin slices ginger- cut across the grain, about the size of a quarter.
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup peanut butter ( or sub almond butter!)
- 1/2 cup fresh orange juice ( roughly 1 large orange)
- 1/3 cup fresh lime juice ( roughly 2 limes)
- 1/4 cup soy sauce or GF Braggs Liquid Amino Acids (Note: Tamari will turn this unpleasantly dark)
- 1/3 cup honey, agave, or maple syrup
- 1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
- 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper ( or a squirt of sriracha sauce)
- 1 teaspoon salt
Add this Baked Sesame Ginger Tofu (Optional)
Instructions
- Cook Noodles. *See notes for rice noodles. Cook pasta according to directions on the package. Drain and chill under cold running water, drain.
- Peanut Sauce. While noodles are cooking, add all the peanut sauce ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. (You can do this up to 3 days ahead and refrigerate.)
- Prep your veggies. Slice, grate, and chop.
- Combine. Place shredded veggies, bell pepper, scallions, cilantro and jalapeño into a serving bowl. Toss. Add the cold noodles to the serving bowl and toss again. Pour some peanut sauce over top and toss well to combine- no need to use all, just use enough to coat it well, generously. (Save any extra sauce for any leftover salad, as it can soak up the sauce overnight.)
- Taste. Adjust the salt (to your liking), add chili flakes if you want, or more lime, and serve, garnishing with roasted peanuts and cilantro and a lime wedge.
Notes
Rice Noodles: If cooking pad thai style rice noodles, pour boiling water over the noodles in a baking dish, let soak until softened, drain.
Salad will keep 4 days in the fridge.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 214
- Sugar: 10 g
- Sodium: 280.5 mg
- Fat: 9.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 29.9 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 2.9 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Wow. This was delish and even impressed my meat eating older son. I did reduce the maple syrup (for 2x servings) to a 1/4 cup and that was plenty for us but otherwise didn’t change a thing. Added the tofu from your blog too. So good. Eat the rainbow for sure!
So glad to hear this Tricia! Thanks so much for the review!
This is a perfect make-ahead summer dinner with the sesame ginger tofu! I bought shredded carrots and broccoli slaw to cut down on prep time. 🙂 The salad is cool and delicious, and there are just enough noodles!
Great to hear this Lauren!
This dish takes a lot of time and makes a lot of mess and is totally worth it. The peanut sauce cannot be beat–subtle, beautiful, layered flavors. Two t cayenne and 2 T minced jalapeno gives just the perfect touch of heat.
Ha! Glad you gave it a try and glad to hear you enjoyed!
bright, crunchy and delicious!
Great to hear Kim!
Can we just say in one word “exquisite”… delicious. A bit of work chopping etc. but so simply the flavour marries together into a bowl of fresh tasting greatness! Tofu wasn’t used just as a personal note, but easily could add shrimp mmmmmmmm!!
Yay, so glad you liked this MaryLou! Shrimp would be yummy.
This was a big hit at our community gathering and a number of people asked me for the recipe. Great that it is vegan and can be gluten free and so delicious and full of veggies. One of our friends said that her husband doesn’t usually like ‘experimental salads’, so that fact that he loved this one was exceptional. It took me a little longer to make the peanut sauce than I expected, and will double the batch as you recommended next time. As it is, I have about half of it left and will make another salad soon (the one I brought is gone!). I used Vietnamese rice vermicelli.
So glad it worked out for you Bonnie! Thank you for the reivew!
Very good, I did use all the sauce but next time cut back and keep for next batch. the cabbage and radishes make it crunchy, and sauce is very flavourful. My family thought it was great as well
Good to hear Karen!
Perfect meal post-hike. We prepped the day before and added jumbo cooked shrimp instead of tofu. The sauce really made it!! Your recipes are always successful 👍🏼
Thanks so much Robin! Glad you enjoyed and love the shrimp idea!
I have made this numerous times and it’s always a HIT~
A bit labor intensive but worth the effort.
Thanks Jane!
Absolutely loved this salad. Just the right amount of spice to appeal to everyone. Will certainly be making this again.
Happy you enjoyed this Lesley!
Love this recipe. I always end out with extra peanut sauce. Can you let us know how long it can be stored in the fridge?
It will last about 4 days in the fridge, it also freezes well!
Thank you Tonya!
👍
I am told that the peanut sauce in this recipe way outranked every bottled sauce one of the guests had bought at Uwajimaya’s. (My understanding is he bought one of each, concurrently, to taste test, once upon a time.) Regardless, I made both this peanut sauce and the peanut sauce for your Thai cabbage slaw recipe (slightly different sauces) and the person who eats Keto loved their slightly different peanut sauce too. I made a Thai Salad mix bar to address the diversity of diets in company tonight. Pile on what you like, use your labeled peanut sauce, and toss. I had cilantro haters, spice haters, and had to avoid seafood entirely. (Put on diced chicken, cooked rice noodles, minced jalapeño, cut up mango, and roasted peanuts as the add ins). Final step at the “buffet bar” was to toss what is in your bowl with a separate pair of salad tossers. With its own plate to keep the counter clean. Making the slaw mix, per your recipe, (sorta) was the unifying base. Whether or not I really needed to make two, slightly different peanut sauce is the only a remaining question … one that my husband and I will decide as we taste test using up the leftover cabbage/ veg mix. The rice noodles plus peanut sauce rocked for those of us who tossed our “veg mix” with noodles and the slightly different peanut sauce for Thai Cabbage Slaw (without any noodles) did the same for the Keto follower. Thank you being a cooking website where I can spring untried recipes on my company!
Awesome Tessa, love the research and making it work for everyone!
This is the best asian salade I know. All of our family is fond of it.
Marijke In Netherlands
So happy you are enjoying Marijke!
Do you have any recommendations to make another meal with leftover peanut sauce? Love this salad by the way. I am thinking about doubling the sauce and freezing it so I can have it on hand. How do you thaw it?
To thaw- take out of the freezer and thaw overnight in the fridge. You can also put the sealed jar(or whatever you froze it in) in slightly warm water and it will thaw in about an hour.
We love peanut sauce on spring rolls, Bali bowls, roasted broccoli, crispy tofu, chicken- lots of possibilities!
Holy Cow! Thank you so much. Love the dressing and the salad is going to be a big hit for dinner tonight paired with a pork tenderloin
Sounds great Debbie! Thanks for the review!
This is a delicious recipe and one that I will make many more times. It is full of fresh veggies and the sauce is the “bomb”. It doesn’t get better than this. Thank you for such a delicious recipe.
Glad you liked this one Sarah!
Couldn’t wait to make this with all my fresh ingredients from the market. I doubled the noodles so that I had leftovers, and looking forward to having it after it sits a day.
It is definitely on the hot side (i like things mild) – I used 1 tsp of the cayenne, so next time I would dial it back to 1/4 or 1/2 but my partner loved it!
How long does the peanut sauce keep in the fridge? I have so much leftover!
Sorry about the spice! Peanut sauce will keep for around 4-5 days in the fridge- it also freezes well!
Definite 5 star recipe. I made it for a graduation party and it was a hit, with vegans and non vegans alike. Even the toddlers ate the the noodles out of the salad. Thanks!
Awesome Susan, great to hear!
I have just made the peanut sauce and it is yummy! I’m making the rest tomorrow for a party. I’m wondering which noodles will hold up best. Did you use linguine in the video? It’s such a pretty dish.
Linguine, bean thread and soba noodles will probably be the best to hold up.
I have made this recipe twice now the second time I also made the Sesame Ginger Tofu to make it a complete meal.
This recipe is so delicious my whole family loved it. I will be making it often we love it so much.
Thank you so much for the recipe
So nice to hear this Lucille!
Making this for company. Is it better to make day if or night before?
It is at it’s best the day of. You can get all the components prepped and ready to assemble a day or two before hand.
This tasted great! Happy to have found a healthy and flavourful recipe. Everyone in our family loved it.
Happy to hear this Alysha!
This is so good! My husband and I both loved it. The dressing is so lush!
I only found your blog a few days again when I baked your fab sourdough bread recipe, then realised you also have lots of vegan friendly recipes, YAY!
Awesome Ren! So glad you are giving us a try.:)
Turned out great! Thanks for sharing:)
I’m very new to cooking and being the stay-at-home person at the moment – some times my cooking creations don’t turn out perfectly however when I have my boyfriend a little taste test of the peanut sauce he was hesitant to try but then lit up and finished the whole spoonful and even helped cook the chicken to get dinner ready faster!!
Cleaned his plate and asked for left overs for lunch :)))
Thanks for making this recipe a winner, I felt so proud to make something delicious finally!
Aww…yay Nicki!🙌 So glad you both enjoyed.
Yummy!
Delish!