We love this flavorful, crunchy Thai chicken salad with perfectly cooked chicken, plenty of fresh veggies, peanuts, and the most delicious Thai-inspired creamy dressing. This easy salad is perfect for lunch, dinner, or making ahead!

This Thai chicken salad has been on repeat for lunch lately. It’s perfect for making for tonight or ahead of time for lunch tomorrow. I love leftovers with this salad since the chicken gets better over time, and there’s no lettuce to be found. Instead, you’ll find hearty, crunchy veggies like cabbage, celery, and bell pepper that hold up well to a night or two in the fridge.

The secret to the best salad is to let the chicken sit in our creamy dressing for about 20 minutes before tossing it with the veggies. As written, this turns out as a full dinner-worthy salad, but you can always skip the extra veggies and make the creamy dressing and chicken for a stand-alone salad more similar to classic chicken salad. Feel free to add it into a wrap, lettuce wraps, or turn it into a sandwich.

Key Ingredients

• Chicken: I use chicken breast for this salad, but like to butterfly them before baking them in the oven. This means I slice each chicken breast horizontally, almost all the way through, and open it like a book to create a thinner, even thickness (which also means they cook quickly). If you don’t want to prepare the chicken this way, consider using chicken tenderloins or thin-cut chicken breasts from the store.
• Creamy Thai-Inspired Dressing: For this salad, we are mashing together a creamy chicken salad and a few of our favorite Thai flavors, like fish sauce, lime juice, and sweet Thai chili sauce (which I also use to make the dipping sauce for these crab Rangoon). We use mayo for the base. You can use store-bought, homemade mayo, or if you’d prefer it, swap it for plain Greek yogurt (remember that yogurt will be more tart).
• Veggies: I keep them more hearty, so they hold up over time, and I love cabbage, bell pepper, and celery (yes! celery). When slicing the celery, cut it on a diagonal into thin slices. It’s wonderful in this salad (trust me). Feel free to add more veggies like carrots or jicama. I also add a good amount of fresh cilantro for extra flavor.
• Extras: This salad is about crunch, so I love tossing some peanuts (cashews would be great, too), toasted sesame seeds, and some crispy wonton strips into the bowl. I buy the wonton strips and only add them if I plan to eat the salad right away since they do soften and become soggy over time. So, if you are making this ahead of time, portion them out and keep them in a separate container for when you plan to enjoy the salad so that they stay crunchy.

How to Make Thai Chicken Salad

This Thai chicken salad is pretty simple to make and, I think, has a few elements that you might take away with you even if you aren’t making this exact salad. The first one is how we cook the chicken.

Chicken breasts vary dramatically in size and thickness and are usually not uniform in how thick they are across the breast, so we butterfly them. This means that we take a knife, slice them almost through the middle, and open them like a book, flattening them on the baking sheet.

Next, we rub them down with toasted sesame oil and tamari before baking them in the oven. The seasoning is simple and so good! Remember this technique for other recipes that have an Asian lean and call for cooked chicken.

Alright, now the chicken is cooked, you’ll want to let it cool for a few minutes and fold it into our creamy dressing. Here’s the next tip you should take away with you whether you make this salad or not.

Adding the warm chicken to the dressing encourages the chicken to absorb all the delicious Thai flavors from the dressing. I also pour any juices left on the baking sheet, which tastes amazing thanks to the sesame oil and tamari.

The last step is to chill the chicken for a few minutes before tossing it with all your crunchy sliced veggies. Delicious!