Thai · Beef

Thai Beef Salad

Seared steak sliced thin and tossed with crisp salad, mint and peanuts in a hot, sour, salty and sweet dressing. Adapted by RecipeTin Eats from the Spice I Am cookbook.

Serves

Prep20 min

Cook5 min

SpicyUnder 30 min

Ingredients

For the dressing

½ tsp bird's eye or Thai chilli, deseeded and finely minced
¼ tsp finely minced garlic (½ small clove)
2¼ tsp white sugar
30 ml (2 tbsp) fish sauce
45 ml (3 tbsp) lime juice
15 ml (1 tbsp) grapeseed oil (or canola or vegetable oil)
1 small pinch cooking salt
½ tsp MSG

For the salad

200–250 g (7–8 oz) good-quality beef steak, such as sirloin, at room temperature
15 ml (1 tbsp) vegetable, peanut or canola oil
¼ tsp each salt and pepper
2 heaped cups mixed lettuce leaves
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
¼ small red onion, very finely sliced
½ cucumber (deseeded if you like), halved lengthways and sliced
¼ cup mint leaves, lightly packed
35 g (¼ cup) roasted unsalted peanuts, finely chopped
Extra mint leaves, to garnish

Tick things off as you go. Tap an ingredient's name to see where it's used.

Method

Dressing

Grind the chilli, garlic and a small pinch of salt to a smooth paste in a mortar and pestle. (Or finely mince them, smear into a paste with the side of a knife, and shake in a jar with the rest of the dressing.)
Add the remaining dressing ingredients. Adjust the sugar, lime juice and fish sauce to taste, and set aside.

Beef

Heat a frying pan over high heat until smoking hot.
Drizzle the beef with ½ tbsp of the oil on both sides and season with a good pinch of salt and pepper.
For a 2 cm thick steak, cook 2 minutes each side for medium-rare (52°C / 125°F inside), or 2½ minutes each side for medium (57°C / 135°F).
Move to a plate, tent loosely with foil and rest for 10 minutes.

Salad

Toss the lettuce with 1 tbsp of the dressing.
Slice the beef thinly against the grain and toss in a bowl with the remaining salad ingredients and most of the remaining dressing.
Pile the lettuce onto plates and top with the beef and salad.
Sprinkle with the peanuts, garnish with extra mint and drizzle with the last of the dressing. Serve immediately.

From our kitchen

Good to know

Chilli: ¼ tsp is mild, ½ tsp mildly spicy, 1 tsp properly spicy. Chilli paste works too.
Any good grilling steak works: sirloin, rib eye, scotch fillet, rump, flank or flat iron. It keeps cooking as it rests.
Cut against the grain: turn the steak so its fibres run left to right, then slice straight across them.

How we make it

28 Oct 2026
We leave out the coriander: 1 tbsp chopped stems in the dressing paste, ¼ cup leaves in the salad, and the extra leaves to garnish.

Based on recipetineats.com