Summer

Summer Vegetable and Glass Noodle Salad

August  7, 2014
5
4 Ratings
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

This noodle salad, based on the Vietnamese vermicelli variety, has a brilliant, surprising flavor, especially for something so simple. Even though it has more ingredients than I regularly use–whisking together a homemade nuoc nam is a cinch, but does take a tablespoon of this and a tablespoon of that–none of them can be skipped.

Brimming with crisp and sweet summer vegetables and herbs, this chilled noodle salad is the kind of bowl I want to tuck into for dinner after my shirt has been stuck to my back all day. I think of it as my summer vegetable-and-noodle reward. —Caroline Wright

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 3 tablespoons lime juice
  • 3 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 tablespoon light brown sugar or agave nectar
  • 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
  • 1 spicy chile, chopped
  • 8 ounces rice vermicelli noodles, cooked according to package directions
  • 2 cups shredded leftover roasted chicken, either store-bought rotisserie or homemade
  • 2 cups sliced cucumber
  • 1 cup finely grated carrot
  • 1 cup grated golden beets
  • 3 cups mixed herb leaves, like cilantro, basil and mint
  • 1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts
Directions
  1. Stir together lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, and chile in a large bowl with 3 tablespoons water. Add noodles, chicken, cucumber, carrot, beets, beans, herbs, and peanuts; toss everything together to coat the vegetable and the noodles in dressing.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • caswat2016
    caswat2016
  • Paige Anne LeBoutillier
    Paige Anne LeBoutillier
  • Maggie A
    Maggie A
  • bobbie joh
    bobbie joh
Before her diagnosis, Caroline wrote a book on cakes called Cake Magic!. She started developing a birthday cake using her gluten-free mix found in that book. Check out other recipes she’s developing for her new life—and the stories behind them—on her blog, The Wright Recipes. Her next book, Soup Club, is a collection of recipes she made for her underground soup club of vegan and grain-free soups she delivers every week to friends throughout Seattle's rainy winter.

6 Reviews

caswat2016 March 22, 2021
Simple summer roll turned into a salad. I skipped chicken, quick poached some shrimp, threw some on top and was a good'n'fast dinner. FYI, if you don't want to do agave or brown sugar, maple syrup is great replacement that whisks faster than the granulated sugar...
 
Paige A. June 4, 2020
Yummy goodness!! I've had my eye on this recipe for a few months now and finally made it for dinner tonight. My entire family had seconds, and my husband enjoyed thirds! For the chicken, I used two cutlets roasted in a simple marinade of sesame oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, gochujang paste, and a little rice vinegar. 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Next time, I will also add fresh tofu as a protein option! SO GOOD!
 
Maggie A. August 6, 2017
In the directions, it states to add beans but there are no beans listed in the ingredients. It assumed that it is a typo but just wanted to make sure I didn’t leave out something important. Thanks so much.
 
bobbie J. June 28, 2016
I added thinly sliced red bell pepper. I never even made the noodles! We just ate it as a big salad and it was delicious.
 
BethA August 30, 2014
Fantastic! I feel like I finally made something Thai, and it worked. Everything is perfectly balanced: flavors, textures, colors, aromatics. Yumm! * I did substitute poblano for the spicy pepper to accommodate kids' palates.
 
lologod August 19, 2014
Tried this for my picky eater. Dislikes veggies. And....surprisingly it was a success. We are adding this to our list of quick and yummy weeknight dinner list. A slight twist was I made extra sauce and cooked some chicken thighs in the sauce. It came out beautifully.