Thai Inspired Sweet & Spicy Mango Salad

The weather is finally warming up here in the North-West. Along with it comes burst of fresh summer fruits and vegetables. To me summer screams “Mangoes”. In India it’s the most sought after fruit of all time. In fact, it’s almost an obsession. For 2-3 months in the year, it’s all you’ll see and hear about…Mango ice-cream, mango puddings, fresh mango’s and cream, mango pulp even mango curries.

So when I saw mangoes at the store the other day, I just knew I had to do a recipe with them. I had planned on making fish (tilapia) that day so I thought of making a mango salsa with a Thai twist to go with it. Now I usually make this salad, inspired by the Thai Green Mango Salad by julienning all the ingredients so that they’re resemble long noodle like strands. But, I wanted to keep it chunky this time so I diced up the mango, cucumber, onion and bell pepper to look like a salsa. The dressing is not your traditional Thai Green Mango Salad dressing, where they use bird’s eye chili and garnish it with peanuts, but I feel like the flavors are pretty close using simple ingredients that I always have at home. The mangoes I used were not overly ripe, infact they were mosly green on the outside. This salad is refreshing, sweet, tangy and a little spicy. I can’t stop eating it when I make it, it’s quite addictive. Here’s how you can make it too…

Easy Thai Inspired Sweet & Spicy Mango Salad

Ingredients:
1 Mango, peeled & diced
1/4 Red Onion, diced
1/2 Red Bell pepper, diced
1 cucumber, peeled & diced
Handful of roughly chopped cilantro
For The Dressing-
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp fish sauce
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp seasame oil
1 tsp cayenne pepper powder
Salt to taste.

Method:
– Toss the diced mango, onion, bell pepper and cucumber in a bowl together.
– In a seperate bowl, mix together all the dressing ingredients- sugar, fish sauce, lemon juice, seasame oil, cayenne pepper and salt. Stir until most of the sugar is well dissolved.
– Pour the dressing into the salad.
– Add a handful of roughly chopped cilantro and toss the salad so that everything is covered in the dressing.
– Enjoy!