Green Papaya Salad
This past weekend, we celebrated a friend’s birthday with a potluck menu of “her favorite foods.” Lucky for me, this friend’s list of faves closely aligns with my own and I was able to indulge our mutual love of Green Papaya Salad by trying my hand at making my own, for the first time.
Those of you who are fans of this salad staple at almost every Thai and Vietnamese restaurant, can understand the obsession. Green Papaya Salad has that perfect balance of salty, spicy, sweet and sour which is then elevated even further by the somewhat elusive, totally funky, culinary delight known as umami.
For those who have yet to be indoctrinated, please note that this is not a salad made of the sweet orange papaya with which you may be familiar. To be honest, I am not a fan of that (ripe) papaya and promise that the green (unripe) papaya tastes absolutely nothing like its ripened version. I discovered while making this recipe that green papaya doesn’t taste like much of anything but it happens to stand up perfectly to the aggressive dressing that makes this salad so special. The green papaya, tossed with halved grape tomatoes, segments of long beans (or green beans) and sprinkled with chopped peanuts, is magically transformed into something truly wonderful.
If you are already a fan of Green Papaya Salad, I promise that this version, adapted from Epicurious, delivers a pretty close, if not exact, replica of the restaurant staple. If you’re a “green papaya virgin” and are feeling adventurous, I urge you to give it a try. The authentic ingredients are included in the recipe (i.e. palm sugar, which I found to be hard to find in what seemed like a usable form) but the American substitutions work just fine. I encourage you to give this recipe a try. I will be making it all summer long. Enjoy!
Green Papaya Salad
- 5 Tbls fresh lime juice
- 3 Tbls (packed) palm sugar or light brown sugar
- 2 Tbls plus 2 tsp fish sauce
- 2 Tbls dried shrimp, chopped (I used dried shrimp flavored shallots, but you can omit entirely)
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 Chinese long beans or 15 green beans
- 1 1 1/2- to 1 3/4-lb green papaya, peeled, halved, seeded
- 10 grape tomatoes, halved
- 1 c chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 scallions, very thinly sliced
- 1 fresh red Thai chile with seeds, thinly sliced
- 2 Tbls coarsely chopped salted peanuts
- Whisk first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Set dressing aside.
- Cook beans in medium saucepan of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Rinse under cold water. Cut into 2-inch pieces.
- Using julienne peeler (box grater, spiralizer or mandolin), shred enough papaya to measure 6 cups. Place in large bowl.
- Add tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, chile, and green beans.
- Pour dressing over; toss. Sprinkle peanuts over and serve.
- Palm sugar, fish sauce, dried shrimp, Chinese long beans, green papaya, and Thai chiles can all be found at Asian markets.