Tangled Thai Salad with Lime-Peanut Sesame Dressing

This Tangled Thai Salad lives up to its name with a tangled bowl full of curly, crunchy, colorful veggies, all tossed in lime-peanut sesame dressing and topped with a huge assortment of crunchies including almonds, sesame and sunflower seeds, macadamia nuts, currants, roasted peanuts plus goji berries and coconut! You certainly don’t have to, but it’s so much fun to spiralize some of the veggies for a gigantic curling ribbon effect that turns the salad into a whimsical, beautiful, edible creation. This salad was served to us several years ago as part of a surprise dinner put on by our friends. We raved about it then and still do! Hats off to Amy’s Whole Food Creations for this incredible bowl of edible art! 

We have made a few changes to the recipe, by adding radishes and changing the quantities of a few of the ingredients to suit our taste preferences, and we hope that you will do the same, but by and large we have kept it the same as we got it from Amy. The one thing we didn’t change, even though we are definitely NOT on the beet train, is to keep the golden beets in the salad. It’s a bit bewildering for people who really do not like beets, but they are so tasty in this salad and they present such a gorgeous golden color in the salad.

The dressing is so awesome and if you make extra, it’s fantastic over grilled chicken or even used as a Chinese chicken salad dressing. The combination of the sweet and salty crunchies combined with the variety of textures of the toppings keeps you on your toes for what the next bite will unfold! We love this salad so much and hope you do too. Besides, it’s a fantastic way to eat the rainbow!

Most spiralizers come with at least three blades, and the one we use has four, but we love the six blade version, because it gives you more options. The flat blades result in a long, wide ribbon where the julienne blades create more of a spaghetti like ribbon. It takes just a little bit of practice to use the spiralizer, but you can always check out YouTube videos on how to use it, and which blades are best for which veggies. It’s definitely a fun addition to your kitchen tool collection and at $15,99 they are relatively inexpensive!

5 from 1 vote

Tangled Thai Salad with Lime-Peanut Sesame Dressing

Cabbage, carrots, golden beets, jicama, snap peas, celery, cucumbers and plenty of other greens make this salad a healthy, crunchy delight!

Servings 6 Servings

Prep Time 1 hour hr

Equipment

• Vegetable Spiralizer (optional, but really fun:)

Ingredients

Salad Fixins

• ▢ 1 head Napa cabbage, shredded
• ▢ 1 head Savoy cabbage, shredded
• ▢ 4 carrots, peeled
• ▢ 1 large golden beet, or 2 small, peeled
• ▢ 1 jicama, peeled
• ▢ 2 cucumbers, ends cut off, but skin left on
• ▢ 4 stalks celery, thinly sliced
• ▢ 1 cup snap peas, sliced
• ▢ 4 large radishes, stems and leaves removed
• ▢ 2 bunches cilantro, small leaves or chiffonade
• ▢ 1/2 cup fresh mint, chiffonade
• ▢ 2 limes, cut into wedges for garnish

Crunchy Topper

• ▢ 1 cup toasted slivered almonds
• ▢ 1 cup sunflower seeds
• ▢ 1 cup dry roasted peanuts
• ▢ 1/4 cup madacamia nuts
• ▢ 1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
• ▢ 1/2 cup Goji berries
• ▢ 1/2 cup currants
• ▢ 1/4 cup shredded, toasted coconut

Peanut-Lime Sesame Dressing

• ▢ 2 cloves garlic
• ▢ 1 bunch cilantro
• ▢ 6 tbsp. peanut butter
• ▢ 6 limes, juiced
• ▢ 4 tbsp. tamari
• ▢ 3 tbsp. rice vinegar
• ▢ 6 tsp. coconut milk
• ▢ 2 tbsp. fresh grated ginger
• ▢ 3 tsp. sesame oil
• ▢ 3 tsp. sambal
• ▢ 1 1/2 cups sunflower oil

Instructions

Lime-Peanut Sesame Dressing

• Blend all ingredients except the oil in the food processor. When processed, drizzle the oil into the mixture and blend until incorporated. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Salad

• If you have a spiralizer, use the flat blade to cut the cucumbers and radishes into beautiful ribbon spirals. If you don’t have one of these nifty gadgets, thinly slice both.
  
• Using one of the julienne blades on the spiralizer, cut the carrots and golden beets into long thin, spaghetti-like ribbons. Otherwise, cut them into thin julienned strips.
• Cut jicama into matchstick pieces
• Shred both cabbages. This can be done by hand, or in the spiralizer or you can buy pre-shredded cabbage.
• Toss all of the veggies with the dressings to coat well. Add about half of the crunchies and toss. Serve with a garnish of lime and pass the extra crunchies.

Cruncher Topper

• Mix all topper ingredients and mix half into the salad when tossing and pass the rest for extra crunchies on top.

Notes

Note, you can either use creamy or crunchy peanut butter in the dressing. We have used both and love it both ways. 

If you don’t have a veggie spiralizer, you can simply slice or cut the veggies with a paring knife. We love the curlycue effect you get with the spiralizer, and it makes a beautiful presentation, but it will still taste the same without it!😉 If you do buy the spiralizer, you can also use it for apples, when it comes time to make apple pie!