Easy Asian prawn salad recipe made with king prawns, glass noodles, crisp vegetables, and chilli lime dressing. One of the best prawn salad ideas, that you can make at home in 15 minutes!
This salad recipe can be made with simple everyday ingredients that you can easily buy at the supermarkets. It takes only a few minutes to prepare and is perfect for busy days! This Asian dressing sauce is adapted from Vietnamese and Thai prawn salad recipes and is perfectly balanced, with sweet, sour, spicy, and salty flavour.
If you are bored of prawn mango avocado salad or prawn cocktail salad it's time to try out this refreshing Asian-style shrimp salad! What I love about this dish is, it is so versatile! You can customize the salad vegetables, noodles, and balance out the sauce ingredients!
Jump to:
Ingredients we need
Prawns - I use cooked and peeled king prawns for this recipe which is very convenient and saves time when you have a little time to peel and deveined fresh prawns. You can add any cooked king prawns, tiger prawns, or small prawns.
Can I use fresh prawns? Yes, you can. If you want to try with fresh prawns, peel and devein the prawns and blanch in hot boiling water for 1-2 minutes depending on the size of prawns you cook. Remove from water, pat dry with a paper towel, and is ready to add to your salad.
Salad vegetables - In this recipe, I add cherry tomatoes, onions, chili pepper, coriander, and mint leaves. Salad tomatoes, shredded cucumber, carrots, bean sprouts, and shredded cabbage go well too. Feel free to add your favourite salad vegetables.
Noodles - You can add glass noodles ( cellophane/ mung bean/ sweet potato noodles ) or thin rice noodles ( vermicelli noodles ).
Prawn salad dressing - Most Asian salad dressing sauces are very similar in general. Thai and Vietnamese prawn salad contains lime juice, vinegar, sugar, chopped garlic, lemongrass, and fresh chilies.
This is an oil-free dressing that doesn't contain any olive oil or sesame oil. Contain 4 basic ingredients, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and garlic. Add fresh finger chilli or birdeye chilli for a kick of spice. You can omit it if you don't like it spicy or reduce the amount. Feel free to swap sugar with honey, brown sugar, or palm sugar.
Fish Sauce Substitute - Fish sauce has a salty, sweet, umami taste and is ideal for this recipe. Highly recommend adding fish sauce if you do not have any shellfish or seafood allergy. If you want to avoid it, substitute it with soy sauce or salt, according to your taste.
Topping and Garnish - For a toasty flavour, sprinkle some toasted chopped peanuts and crispy fried onions.
Simple Steps To Make Prawn Salad
1. First, soak the glass noodles with hot water for 6-8 minutes. Once it becomes soft and transparent, drain the water out.
2. Combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and mix it well until sugar is dissolved.
3. Next, add the glass noodles, onion and cherry tomatoes in.
4. Follow with the cooked prawns.
5. Add coriander, mint leaves and pour the salad dressing and toss well to combine everything evenly.
6. Transfer to a serving plate and garnish with toasted peanuts and crispy fried onions.
Cooking Tips
- You don't need to add the same ingredients, you can be creative by adding shredded chicken, grilled chicken, beef, tofu or any of your choice of protein. Boiled, blanched, or grilled.
- Cut the noodles into short strands (about 3-4 inches) with scissors, so it's easy to toss in the salad and easy to serve.
- It's important not to overcook the glass noodles. Depending on the brands and different types of noodles, cooking time and method can be slightly different. You can either soak in hot boiling water for 6-8 minutes, then drain the water out. Or you can boil in boiling water in 1-2 minutes then rinse with cold water to prevent it from overcooked.
- Make extra dressing sauce, keep it in an air-tight jar and store in fridge for later use. It usually lasts for a couple of days in fridge.
- You don't really get the fishy smell from fish sauce beacauce the lime juice, garlic and chilli, perfecly balanced the flavour. The sauce taste and smell amazing!
Frequently asked questions
It is only 388 kcal per serving. This nutritional is calculated approximately and can be varied by a number of factors.
This is one of the tastiest healthy prawn salads which has no oil or cream inside and glass noodles and prawns are very low in calories.
If you prefer your prawns warm, saute the chopped garlic with a teaspoon of oil then, add the peeled and deveined fresh prawns, saute for 1-2 minutes. Then transfer the prawns to a salad bowl, toss them together with the vegetables and salad dressings. That's how we usually make warm prawn salad with garlic and chilli.
What to serve with prawn salad?
Serve with plain jasmine rice, basmati rice, egg fried rice or noodles. You can also pair it with Thai Spring rolls, Chicken Sweet Corn Soup, Duck Chow Mein or Beef Lo Mein and make it a wholesome dinner.
More delicious prawn/shrimp recipes
Stay updated on new recipes:
We are on social media Facebook, Instagram, YouTube ( New recipe video every week ), and Pinterest ( Pin your favourite recipes ). If you've tried this recipe, please share your comment or post on social media and tag me. I would love to see your creations and feedback.
📖 Recipe
Prawn Salad with Asian Dressing
Ingredients
- 200 g King prawns Peeled and deveined cooked prawns, thawed
- 100 g Glass noodles Cellophane/ Mung Bean or Rice Noodles
- 1 Salad onion Cut thin slices
- 8 Cherry tomatoes Cut in halves
- 1 Red chilli pepper Cut thin slices ( Optional )
- handful Coriander Roughly chopped
- handful Mint leaves
Dressing sauce ingredients
- 3 tbsp Fish sauce Or Light soy sauce or salt to taste
- 3 tbsp Lime juice Fresh squeeze lime juice
- 3 tbsp Sugar Or honey/brown sugar
- 2 cloves Garlic Finely chopped/grated
- 2-3 Finger chillies Or bird eye chilli ( adjust amount according to taste )
Instructions
- Thaw/defrost the prawns according to the packet instructions. Gather and prepare all the vegetables. Combine all the dressing sauce ingredients, in a small bowl. Mix well until sugar dissolved and set it aside.
- Soak the glass noodles in hot boiling water for 8-10 minutes until soft and cooked through. Then drain the water out and shake the excess water out. Or you can boil according to the packet instructions.
- In a large mixing bowl, place the cooked glass noodles, prawns, cherry tomatoes, onions, chilli slices, coriander and mint leaves.
- Pour the dressing sauce and toss well to combine everything evenly.
- Transfer to serving plate and sprinkle roasted crushed peanuts and fried onions.
Notes
- Cut the noodles into short strands (about 3-4 inches) with scissors, so it's easy to toss in the salad and serve.
- Make extra dressing sauce and store it in an air-tight jar for later use. It usually lasts in the fridge for a couple of days.
Daniel says
Absolutely loved the recipe! The only thing I would do differently would be to reduce the amount of sugar slightly as I like a bit more acidity in my sauce.
The noodles were also slightly over cooked as well, so I would reduce the time as well.
That being said, it’s a really good recipe and I would definitely recommend it.
Khin says
So glad that you enjoyed this recipe, Daniel. Thanks for trying out and sharing feedback.