JUMP TO RECIPE

When I feel like something, fresh, zingy, veggieful and delicious for dinner - Vietnamese style dishes are usually my go to. So yum.

Key Vietnamese ingredients

You’ll need the basic ingredients at hand - things I always stock like fish sauce, shriracha (a banging garlicky chilli sauce you can buy in the Asian sections of most supermarkets) brown sugar and fresh lime. For lemongrass, I often can’t be bothered chopping and pounding up the lemongrass myself, so opt for the paste you can buy in little tubes in the herb section, or a bottle of the pickled variety. The other key flavours here are the garlic and fresh herbs - Vietamese mint and coriander (cilantro to some).

An interesting fact about rice noodles:

Surprisingly, rice noodles actually have a lower glycaemic index or ‘GI’ than regular rice, which means less of a blood sugar and insulin spike - especially when combined with chicken and vegetables for protein and fibre. So they’re a good option for those with impaired glucose tolerance, diabetes or polycystic ovarian syndrome.

This salad is easy to largely pre-prepare.

You can pre marinate and pre-cook the chicken, cook and cool the noodles, and have your vegetables and herbs chopped up and ready to go for a quick dinner assembly when the time comes.

Rice noodle salad like this is also a ripper left-over option for lunches, as you can pack everything in a container and just add the dressing at the last minute.

Low fodmap tweaks

For those with IBS, you can swap in some garlic infused oil in place of the garlic (about 2 tsps should do it). Depending how careful you need to be, you might need to swap out the shriracha for a suitable tomato sauce and use some fresh chilli. Otherwise, this salad is pretty much good to go for low FODMAP option.

Balmy spring evenings, here we come!