Green papaya salad is a dish that will take you straight to Northern Thailand. It's a light salad made of fresh vegetables dressed in sour, sweet, and savory flavors.
Green papaya salad is hands down my favorite salad. It's tangy and is packed with punches of umami. During my time in Thailand, I ate this multiple times a week at various night markets. Made fresh to order, you can usually find vendors slicing away at a papaya and concocting this salad in a wooden mortar and pestle.
Green papaya salad is popular all throughout Southeast Asia. This salad originated from Laos, but has been tweaked and adapted to regional pallets. The key differentiator is that in Laos, they season the salad with a fermented fish paste, whereas in Thailand, they use fish sauce.
This salad super refreshing and is perfect for when the temperature is hot outside. You can eat this as a complimentary side dish or pair it with a grilled protein for a complete meal. When following diets such as Whole30 or gluten free, it curbs my noodle cravings!
Green Papaya Salad Directions and Ingredients
Preparing the papaya
For this recipe, you can cut the papaya in half and save the other half for another meal. We will be using about ¼ of the whole papaya, but it’s easiest to work in halves. Scoop out the seeds in the center with a spoon, I find that regular metal spoons work best.
Using a vegetable peeler
Use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin. Once that is removed, use the julienne peeler and work your way through the papaya. If you don’t have this specific peeler, you can also julienne the papaya using a knife.
Using a knife
- If using a knife, you can cut the papaya like how they traditionally do it in Thailand. You essentially hack at the peeled papaya, and then slice the whole area down to create long strands of papaya.
- The other option is to slice the papaya into thin pieces and then continue to julienne the papaya.
After you’ve successfully shredded the papaya, allow it to sit in a bowl with water and ice for about 10 minutes. This will allow the papaya firm up.
Cooking Notes:
- If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can massage everything together using your hands. I didn't have a mortar and pestle (and still don't have a proper one for papaya salad) when I was testing out this recipe. I found that massaging the papaya mixture with strong hand clenches gave similar results!
- Another alternative to a mortar and pestle is using the bottom of a glass jar and recreating the same smashing motion.
Finding Green Papaya
You can locate this in most asian grocery stores. It's in the produce aisle and the whole is usually loosely wrapped in paper. Please make sure to buy green papaya for this recipe. Regular orange papaya will not yield the same savory results.
Thai Green Papaya Salad - Som Tam
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 cups green papaya ~ ¼ of a medium papaya, shredded
- 3-4 long beans cut into 2" pieces
- ⅔ cup tomatoes cherry tomatoes or any other kind is fine, chopped
- 3-4 pieces small dried shrimp (optional) chopped
- peanuts (optional)
Vinaigrette
- 1 ½ tbsp fish sauce
- 1 whole lime juiced
- 1-3 birds eye chili (optional) start with one, add more if you want it spicier.
- 1 tbsp palm sugar regular sugar or your choice of sweetener works just as well
- 2 tbsp tamarind juice it's best to use a brand that's made in Thailand or Vietnam
- 3 cloves garlic
Instructions
If you're using a mortar and pestle
- Start by smashing the garlic. Add one chili and continue pounding it into the mixture. Mix in the dried shrimp and palm sugar and continue pounding the ingredients into a very course paste.
- Next, add the green beans, lime, tamarind concentrate and fish sauce. Lightly smash and mix the ingredients together.
- Remove the green papaya from the iced water and add it to the mortar. Continue to lightly smash the ingredients together. Use a spoon to scoop the ingredients from the bottom to the top, and continue working the ingredients with the pestle.
- Add the tomatoes to the salad and lightly work it into the salad with the pestle. You still want the tomato to still be in tact.
- After everything is evenly mixed, transfer the salad into a bowl or plate. Top with peanuts and enjoy immediately!
If you're not using a mortar and pestle
- Put the garlic, chili, dried shrimp, and palm sugar into a chopping board. Using a knife, mince all of the ingredients together until it creates a coarse paste. (If you have a mini food processor or blender, you can use that and pulse the Ingredients together.)
- Move the minced ingredients into a large bowl. Add the tamarind concentrate and fish sauce and mix it.
- Add the green beans, shredded papaya, and tomatoes to the bowl. With clean hands, massage the salad together. While mixing everything together, softly clench handfuls of the salad to lightly bruise the green beans and papaya.
- Top the salad with peanuts and it'll be ready to serve!
Leave a Reply