Thai dishes usually hold a profundity of flavors with many ingredients. But when it comes to salads, they try to keep it simple. So, here we bring about Yum Kai Dao, the famous crispy fried egg salad from Thai cuisine.
This is a special salad that uses fried eggs. These fried eggs are cut into bite-size pieces and incorporated with fresh vegetables, herbs, and a simple salad dressing. Yum Kai Dao is frequently served with steamed sticky rice in Thailand.
Read along and learn what we have to share about this wonderful and delicious Thai dish!
What Is In Yum Khai Dao?
While salads are an essential component of a Thai meal, this dish takes a special place for its exceptional preparation of eggs. “Yum” translates to “type of salad”, while “Kai Dao” means “fried eggs” in the Thai language.
This is one of the most simple salads in Thailand and is served in almost every Thai restaurant. Shallow fried whole eggs are cut into bite-size pieces to be incorporated into this salad. The salad dressing is the most crucial flavoring component in the dish.
This dressing contains all the bold ingredients featuring the perfect balance of flavors. In addition to the eggs and salad dressing, this salad includes a few fresh vegetables for freshness. Yum Kai Dao is usually enjoyed with traditional Thai sticky rice or steamed jasmine rice.
Eggs– Regular room-temperature eggs shallow-fried in a decent amount of oil. One at a time usually goes into the pan for better frying.
Salad dressing– Garlic, Thai red chiles, fish sauce, fresh lime juice, palm sugar
Vegetables– Chinese celery, tomatoes, onions
Optional ingredients– Uses chopped cilantro and peanuts in the salad and lemongrass in the dressing.
How to Make Yum Kai Dao At Home?
If you ever enjoyed this crispy fried egg salad in a Thai restaurant and wonder if you could make it on your own, here’s a great place to start! We will teach you how to make this dish easily at home, using a few simple Thai essentials to get the authentic taste. Upgrade your lunch or dinner with Yum Kai Dao!
Yum Kai Dao Recipe!
3
servings20
minutes5
minutes30
minutesKeep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
- Spices and Herbs
1 clove 1 Garlic (large)
2 2 Fresh Thai Chiles (red chiles)
1 stalk 1 Lemongrass (outer peel and leaves discarded, bottom half of the inner part thinly sliced)
3 sprigs 3 Cilantro (chopped)
1/2 cup 1/2 Celery Leaves (roughly chopped innermost interior part with tender leaves)
- Other ingredients
4 4 Eggs (room temperature)
4 tsp 4 Fish sauce
1 1/2 tbsp 1 1/2 Palm sugar (grated)
2 tbsp 2 Fresh Lime Juice
5 tbsp 5 Vegetable oil
1/2 1/2 Red onion (thinly sliced)
1/2 cup 1/2 Cherry Tomatoes (halved)
1/4 cup 1/4 Peanuts (unsalted, roasted)
1/4 1/4 Yellow Bell pepper (julienned, optional)
- For serving
Cooked plain rice (Sticky rice or Jasmine Rice)
Equipment
1 medium-sized Nonstick panShop This!
1 large Mixing bowlShop This!
1 Mortar and pestleShop This!
Extra bowlsShop This!
SpoonsShop This!
Directions
- Frying the eggs
- Pour oil into the nonstick pan and keep it over the medium-high flame to get heated.
- You can check the heat of the oil by placing the barbeque stick in the oil vertically. If the bubbles appear at the rim of the stick, then you’re good to go.
- Fry the eggs one by one directly by cracking the egg into the pan or cracking the egg into a different bowl and then putting them in hot oil.
- You need to shallow fry each egg until you get a nice, crispy, and bubbly base.
- Use a spoon to moisten the top of the egg with oil as it fries.
- Keep basting the top of the egg for about two minutes or until the yolk is set. The white should be bubbly and browned around the edges, when the egg is perfectly done.
- Once done with all the eggs, transfer them onto the paper tissues and let the excess oil get absorbed into the tissues.
- When the eggs are warm enough to touch, cut them into bite-size pieces and set them aside.
- Making the dressing
- Start by pounding the garlic clove with the red chiles. You must pound them into a paste until no big chunks are left.
- Follow up with the lemongrass and palm sugar. Pound them until you get a smooth paste.
- Into this paste, add the fish sauce and lime juice. Stir well to combine and let this salad dressing sit for 5 minutes before making the salad.
- Making the salad
- In a large mixing bowl, combine sliced onions, celery, chopped cilantro, tomatoes, and bell pepper. Combine them using two spoons.
- Now, mix the cut eggs, peanuts and the prepared salad dressing.
- Toss all the ingredients until the salad dressing is well coated in all vegetables, peanuts, and egg pieces.
- Serve the salad immediately with sticky rice or jasmine rice!
Tasty Notes and Suggestions by SpiceRally
- Use any oil of your choice if you don’t like using vegetable oil to fry the eggs. Olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, and avocado oil are great choices!
- Skip the garlic if you don’t like its taste.
- Adjust the amount of red chiles as per your heat preference. You can use more chiles if you need a more hot kick for this salad.
- Use Chinese celery in your recipe if you can find them. This will give your Yum Kai Dao an authentic taste.
- You can skip the peanuts and use roasted, unsalted cashews instead.
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Well, you can partially make this salad in advance. This means- you can prepare the vegetables and make the salad dressing one day before you wish to make the salad. But we strongly recommend frying the eggs and assembling the ingredients for the salad right before serving to ensure the freshness and taste.
Undoubtedly! This salad does not contain any high-carb ingredients so it is one of the best additions to your diet plan if you are following a low-carb or a ketogenic meal plan.
This salad does not typically contain any gluten-related ingredients. But things might be different if you add soy sauce since soy sauce may contain traces of gluten. Therefore, you should be careful about the content if you order this dish from outside.
