Thai Mango Salad with Lemongrass

We eat this amazingly delicious salad often. This Thai mango salad has the perfect balance between sweet, sour and spicy. There are so many layers of flavor in this mango salad that I can not get enough of it.

You can make this mango salad with ripe or unripe mango. In Thailand it is often made with green mango. Also terribly tasty and crunchier.

The dressing contains fish sauce. If you want to keep this salad completely vegetarian, you have to leave the fish sauce out. The salty soy sauce also gives a lot of umami flavor so it is possible.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe or unripe mango
• 1 large red onion
• 1 big garlic clove
• 1 lemongrass
• 1 red pepper
• half a lime
• a handful of fresh coriander
• two tablespoons of chives

Salad dressing

• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon salty soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

There are of course all kinds of versions of mango salad. You can add bean sprouts, too for example for extra crunchiness. Or you sprinkle some crushed peanuts or roasted sesame seeds on top for extra deep flavors.

Thai Mango Salad with Lemongrass

I like to make my mango salad with red onions and some chives. The colors in the salad are especially important. You’ll work up an appetite while making this recipe.

I start by cutting onion rings. Red onion is sweet and tender in flavor. It fits well in this salad. The garlic and chili pepper I cut in small pieces too. You can of course add more chili peppers. In Thailand, I have eaten this salad extraordinarily spicy.

I cut my ripe mango into small strips. Then I chop up the lemongrass as fine as possible.

Lemongrass is often used in Indonesian cuisine in its entirety, but in the Thai kitchen (where this salad comes from) fresh lemongrass is chopped finely and eaten completely.

I love fresh coriander and cut it not too finely so you can still see the leaves. The chives go into 1-centimeter pieces. The greens look beautiful in this salad.

Dressing

For my dressing, I use sesame oil, fish sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar and salty soy sauce (for example Kikkoman or the salty soy sauce of Ketjap ABC).

Just like with every salad I mix the ingredients well and pour the sauce over the mixed salad.

Finally, I squeeze half a lime over everything. That gives an extra kick in taste and the lime makes it even more tropical.

I let my salad stand for a minute or 10 so the dressing flavors the mango and onions. Just before serving I mix the salad again.

We eat my mango salad with white rice and a curry dish of tofu for example. I think the combination of meat or tofu in coconut stock and this crispy salad is absolutely fantastic.