Vietnamese-style chicken salad

Calories per serving: 253

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

Serves 2

I’m yet to meet anyone who doesn’t enjoy the zingy freshness of Vietnamese food, so I’m sure you are going to love this aromatic chicken salad. The recipe uses pre-cooked chicken, so allow extra time if you need to pan-fry some from raw.

INGREDIENTS

For the salad

– 1 tsp sesame seeds, to garnish

– 75g green beans, trimmed and halved

– 1 red or yellow pepper, sliced

– 100g beansprouts

– ¼ cucumber, diced

– 200g pre-cooked chicken, without the skin, shredded

– 2 spring onions, sliced

– a small handful of mint leaves, chopped

For the dressing

– 1 tbsp fish sauce

– 1 tsp rice vinegar (or other white vinegar)

– 1 tbsp runny honey

– 1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped

– 1 garlic clove, finely grated

– juice of 1 lime

– 1 tsp sesame oil

METHOD

Heat a small frying pan and toast the sesame seeds for 1 minute until golden, then set aside in a small bowl.

Using the same pan, make the dressing. Add the fish sauce, vinegar, honey, chilli, garlic and lime juice to the pan and bring to a simmer. Stir for a further minute or so, then turn off the heat, stir in the sesame oil and set aside to cool.

Bring a small pan of water to the boil and blanch the green beans for 1 minute. Drain and run under the cold tap to retain the nice green colour then transfer to a serving bowl. Add the pepper, beansprouts and cucumber, and toss together.

Top with the shredded chicken, spring onions and mint. Dress just before serving and top with toasted sesame seeds.