Thai Chicken Noodle Salad

Ingredients

• 1kg chicken breast
• 200g dried pad Thai rice noodles
• 100g snow peas, thinly sliced
• 1 spring onion, finely sliced
• 1 telegraph cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1 red capsicum, thinly sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and shredded
• mint leaves — optional garnish, skip
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, crushed
• 2 Tbsp sweet chilli sauce
• 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 4 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar (or runny honey) — staple
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp crushed ginger

Method

1. Slice the chicken breasts in half horizontally to give thin, even pieces. Season well with salt and pepper.
2. Heat a frying pan or BBQ to high and cook the chicken 5 minutes per side until cooked through. Rest.
3. Whisk the dressing — soy, fish sauce, lime juice, sweet chilli, brown sugar, garlic and ginger — in a jug and chill until needed.
4. Put the noodles in a large bowl, cover with boiling water and leave 8-10 minutes until tender. Drain and toss with the sesame oil.
5. Add the snow peas, spring onion, cucumber, capsicum and carrot. Pour over half the dressing and toss with tongs, then transfer to a serving dish or bowls.
6. Slice the rested chicken into thin strips, arrange over the salad and scatter with the crushed peanuts.
7. Drizzle over a little more dressing just before serving and leave the rest in a jug at the table.

Notes

- Meat ≈500g per 4 servings per house rule. Unchanged from the source: vjcooks calls for 1kg chicken breast and lists it as 4-6 serves, so at 5-6 it lands on the house rule. Kept at 4 serves here, which makes it a generous plate — stretch it to 6 or drop to 500g of breast if you want it exactly on target. Calories/protein are the source's own figures for the full 1kg. - No apple or pear in this one — the source salad does not include any, so nothing needed omitting under the house rule. - Chicken thigh works if you prefer it; cook a couple of minutes longer per side and expect a richer, slightly higher-calorie plate. - Dress the noodles while still warm so they soak it up, but hold the final drizzle until serving or the veg goes limp. - Leftovers keep a day; store the chicken and dressing separately from the noodle salad. - Veg/staples sweep: the source's half-quantities left it at ~105g veg/serve, so the cucumber, capsicum and carrot went to full quantities (1 cucumber, 1 capsicum, 2 carrots) — now ~190g veg/serve for about +25 cal. Fresh mint dropped to optional garnish; sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and crushed ginger lost their "staple" markers, and the honey line defaults to cupboard brown sugar.