Vietnamese salad with prawns and rice noodles recipe

Our Vietnamese salad with prawns and rice noodles is a fresh and colourful dish that is delicious as well as being good for you. We’ve combined the crunchy vegetable salad with prawns in a fragrant Vietnamese marinade and a rich hoisin and peanut sauce. Vietnamese recipes may seem intimidating as they often have many ingredients, but this Vietnamese salad with prawns and rice noodles really couldn’t be more simple. Once you’ve chopped the veg and marinated the prawns, it’s just like cooking a normal week-night stir fry – but with results that are so much more special! Why not mix things up this week and make this Vietnamese salad? It’s a healthy meal that is bursting with flavour that everyone will love.

Ingredients

For the salad

• 100g rice noodles
• 2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
• 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into matchsticks
• 100g cucumber, cut into matchsticks
• 90g bean sprouts, rinsed
• 2tbsp chopped mint leaves
• 2 small Little Gem lettuces
• 1 lime, cut into wedges, optional

For the prawns

• 235g raw king prawns
• 2tsp curry powder
• 1tsp lemongrass, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1tbsp sunflower oil

For the sauce

• 4tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1tbsp peanut butter

Method

1. Put the noodles into 1ltr boiling water and leave for 10 mins to plump up.
2. Combine the carrot, red pepper, cucumber, bean sprouts and chopped mint leaves in a bowl.
3. Put the prawns into a non-metallic bowl, add the curry powder, lemongrass, garlic, then season. Marinate for 1 hour.
4. Stir the hoisin sauce, peanut butter and 1tbsp boiling water together, to make a smooth sauce.
5. Heat the sunflower oil in a pan and fry the prawns for 5 mins, turning as needed.
6. Drain the noodles. Put all the ingredients, including the lettuce, into separate bowls and let everyone help themselves. Dollop on the sauce and stir together. Squeeze over the lime, if using.