Crunchy Thai Peanut & Quinoa Salad
This Thai-flavored salad recipe is made with carrots, cabbage, snow peas, and quinoa, tossed in peanut sauce. Vegan, gluten free, and packs well for lunch.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 14, 2024
I tend to keep to myself, especially in yoga class. It’s not a very social form of exercise, you know? Last year, when I walked into my usual Tuesday evening yoga class and my instructor shouted, “COOKIE AND KATE,” I froze. Kim, a regular in the class, had learned about my blog through her co-worker, and she said, “I know her! I go to yoga with her!”
Then Kim told Kristina, the teacher, and then everyone found out. Including Amie, one of my favorite instructors, who is great friends with Kate Kasbee of Well Vegan. Kate lives in Chicago and was working on a cookbook called Frugal Vegan at the time.
Through the Amie-Kate connection, I got a sneak peek at Frugal Vegan and wrote a blurb for the back cover. “Frugal Vegan offers an incredible array of fresh and simple vegan recipes. Every single one of them manages to be easy to make, affordable and accessible, too.”
Kate came to town for Amie’s birthday party, so I met her for drinks, and a giant green bug landed in her herbed green cocktail. Are you still following? I can’t make this stuff up.
Kate and I bonded over the trials and tribulations of cookbook-making, our love for our funny-looking pups (meet Rex), and the green bug experience. We practiced our half-moon poses at Amie’s backyard birthday party the next day. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shy about my work, since it opens so many fun doors.
Today, I’m sharing a delicious recipe from Frugal Vegan, featuring cabbage, carrots, green onion, snow or snap peas, and cilantro—all fresh, affordable, and loaded with nutrients and fiber. Toss all of that in an addictive homemade peanut sauce for a crisp, colorful, Thai-inspired salad. Enjoy it as a light summer dinner, and pack up the leftovers for tomorrow lunch.
The book’s recipe calls for millet instead of quinoa. I picked up all of the other ingredients at the store, while assuming that I had millet in my pantry at home. I did not, so I used quinoa instead. Millet is less expensive but quinoa has more protein, so take your pick accordingly. It’ll turn out great either way. Enjoy, and be sure to check out Kate and Katie’s book, Frugal Vegan!
Watch How to Make Thai Peanut & Quinoa Salad
Please let us know how the recipe turns out for you in the comments!
Craving more peanut goodness? You’ll love these recipes:
- Peanut Slaw with Soba Noodles
- Thai Mango Salad with Peanut Dressing
- Peanut Dipping Sauce
- Thai Mango Cabbage Wraps with Crispy Tofu and Peanut Sauce
- Thai Panang Curry
Crunchy Thai Peanut & Quinoa Salad
This Thai-flavored salad recipe is made with carrots, cabbage, snow peas, and quinoa, tossed in delicious peanut sauce. This healthy salad is vegan, gluten free, and packs well for lunch. Recipe yields 4 salads.
Ingredients
Salad
- ¾ cup uncooked quinoa or millet
- 1 ½ cups water
- 2 cups shredded purple cabbage
- 1 cup grated carrot
- 1 cup thinly sliced snow peas or sugar snap peas
- ½ cup chopped cilantro
- ¼ cup thinly sliced green onion
- ¼ cup chopped roasted and salted peanuts, for garnish
Peanut sauce
- ¼ cup smooth peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (I love ginger so I used 2 teaspoons)
- ½ lime, juiced (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Cook the quinoa: First, rinse the quinoa in a fine mesh colander under running water. In a medium-sized pot, combine the rinsed quinoa and 1 ½ cups water. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and gently simmer the quinoa until it has absorbed all of the water, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the quinoa from heat, cover the pot and let it rest for 5 minutes. Uncover the pot and fluff the quinoa with a fork. Set it aside to cool. (Here’s how to cook millet.)
- Meanwhile, make the peanut sauce: Whisk together the peanut butter and tamari until smooth (if this is difficult, microwave the mixture for up to 30 seconds to loosen it up). Add the remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. If the mixture seems too thick to toss into the salad, whisk in a bit of water to loosen it up (I didn’t need to do this).
- In a large serving bowl, combine the cooked quinoa, shredded cabbage, carrot, snow peas, cilantro and green onion. Toss to combine, then pour in the peanut sauce. Toss again until everything it lightly coated in sauce. Taste, and if it doesn’t taste quite amazing yet, add a pinch of salt and toss again. Divide into individual bowls and garnish with peanuts.
- This salad keeps well, covered and refrigerated, for about 4 days. If you don’t want your chopped peanuts to get soggy, store them separately from the rest and garnish just before serving.
Notes
Recipe minimally adapted from Frugal Vegan by Katie Koteen and Kate Kasbee.
Make it vegan: Use maple syrup (or agave nectar) instead of honey.
Make it gluten free: Be sure to use certified gluten-free tamari, not soy sauce.
Recommended equipment: I used this mandoline to shred the cabbage (it’s dangerous; watch your fingers at all times!) and this julienne peeler to shred the carrots. (Those are affiliate links.)
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
It seems like every time I come to your blog, I find my new favorite recipe!!! I made this yesterday and I absolutely LOVED it. I added some sriracha for an extra kick!
As always, thanks for all the yumms!!
Two days ago, I had shredded a red cabbage, green cabbage, green onions and carrots and came to cookieandkate.com looking for a great slaw dressing. Imagine my joy at seeing this recipe on the front page! I grabbed the leftover pre-cooked quinoa from my fridge, quickly wisked up some peanut sauce and YUM! dinner was ready! I didn’t have peanuts, cilantro, or peas on hand but it was still delicious. Thanks for always being on my wavelength!
I got on your website today because I’m making a vegan menu for the resort I’m working a trade for in Panama and happened to land 1st thing on your story here about where I announced to everyone in class about your blog. Haha I think you should definitely tell everyone what you do here!!!! Share your awesome gifts so everyone can eat such amazing meals. I’m going to Aime’s yoga class on September 9th. Kate Kasbee will be there promoting her cookbook, The Frugal Vegan, sharing treats from her recipes! I hope to see you there!!
Hi Kristina!! It’s so nice to hear from you. I just corrected the spelling of your name in the post. I’m adding that class to my calendar, hope to see you and hear about your adventures!! Hope Panama is treating you well. :)
Aww thanks! Make sure you get a ticket. Amie has it set up on fb. It’s free though. Looking forward to seeing you!!
Delish!! Left the quinoa on the side to give my family the choice of mixing it or not. The peanut sauce is a hit! Im thinking next time getting rice paper and make rolls with this salad then dip in the peanut sauce. Really good.
Thanks for sharing this great recipe and congrats on your new friendships!
Fantastic salad! Leftovers 2 days later did not disappoint either. Still crispy and fresh tasting :) Thank you for all of your delicious recipes.
Just made this–oh, my goodness…so very good! Thank you!
The crunchy thai peanut quinoa salad is delicious! I added roasted tofu so it could be more of a main course and it worked great. Also, I didn’t have any ginger so I used minced/crushed garlic in the dressing instead. I look forward to trying it with the ginger. Also, I used crunchy peanut butter, because that’s what I had, and I think it worked to create the effect of the crumbled peanuts, which I didn’t have!! Thanks for great recipes!–Victoria
I’m glad this worked with what you had on hand, Victoria! Thanks so much for the note.
I made this for lunch today and it was delicious! I loved the quinoa mixed with the vegetables and my husband did too. I rely on your blog and cookbook every week when I plan our family’s meals; thank you so much for your wonderful recipes!
You’re welcome, Beth! I’m glad you love the blog. Thanks for commenting!
I LOOOOVE this salad! I left out the peanuts (trying to save money on my grocery list) and I’m not big on green onions. This is filling, satisfying and yummy – not to mention pretty. I’ve been telling everyone about it. :) Thank you!!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing it, too, Melissa!
So good! My husband scarfed his in a blink and even my super picky autistic kiddo gobbled his up! Definitely going into our regular rotation.
YES I love it when something passes the super-picky-kiddo test! Thanks, Natalie.
Absolutely delicious! Even without the lime (I was sure there was one in the fridge)
Thanks!
Perfect! Thanks, Tammie!
Yum! This took me way longer than 40 minutes (but I am a slow chopper and don’t have a mandoline), but it was worth it for all the leftovers! For more protein, I added tofu baked and basted with the peanut butter sauce. And, oh, I doubled the sauce, because happiness is having MORE of that delicousness in my fridge! Thanks, Kate!
You’re welcome, Em! And this one is definitely a put-on-a-podcast-and-chop-away recipe. I’m glad it was worth all the effort. :)
This salad was amazing. Everyone loved it. I will be making it over and over. Really that good!
Hooray! Thanks, Cheryl.
Delicious! We made this for dinner tonight, and it is so good! We went ahead and doubled the recipe even though we had not tried it before, because we knew we would want extra to take for lunch tomorrow.
I made your broccoli salad last week, and we both loved it so much that we had to arm wrestle for the small serving that was left ☺
Excited to have plenty of salad for both of us for tomorrow’s lunch!
So delicious! I forgot to buy quinoa and substituted brown rice (the round kind). I will absolutely make this again, and may try some of the substitute suggestions above depending on what’s in season. THANK YOU!
You’re welcome, Anne!
I followed this recipe to the letter and it was completely inedible. The peanut butter flavor completely overwhelmed the dish and it was way too salty, even though I used low sodium soy sauce.
Oof, sorry to hear that, Melissa. Did you make sure to use unsalted peanut butter? That could be the culprit.
Thank you for the recipe….fabulous! My 14 year old is a finicky eater, but ate this right up!!!! We are trying to move to a plant based diet for our health and the health of the planet. So glad to have something so delicious to kick it off!
Hooray! I love all of this. Thanks, Cris!
Wow! Made this tonight and even my meat loving boyfriend was raving about it!! Thanks so much, such an amazing sauce and healthy meal!
Ok….I just have to write a comment. I made this for the second time tonight. So good!!!! It is the healthiest and tastiest salad I have ever made. It is filling too. It will be my dinner tonight. I could eat it every day. Amazing! I can’t wait to bring it to a family gathering or potluck. Thanks so much for producing these fabulous recipes and stunning accompanying photos. Love love love!!!!
Oh man, Kate. You did it again! This is phenomenal! It’s a much healthier version of their favorite pasta dish. What a veggie packed, gorgeous, and tasty salad! I doubled it to make leftovers for lunch and I’m sooo glad I did.
Wow, look at all those bright colored veggies! They make for beautiful pictures, plus that antioxidant boost doesn’t hurt. I make a similar slaw but I have never tried it with quinoa. I can’t wait to try this recipe. Thanks for sharing!
I’m clearly not the first to this party, but I’m happy to join in and let everyone know the recipe lives up to the hype. As I’ve said on other Cookie + Kate salad recipes, they are just the best. Very simple (no cooking aside from the quinoa) yet the results are rather impressive.
I’ve been obsessed with this salad lately! It’s so good, and perfect for using up the cabbage and snap peas that I have laying around (I always seem to end up with too much of those). I added broccoli and chickpeas to bulk to it up bit too.
Tried this last night for a dinner party and it was a big hit! So stoked to enjoy the leftovers at work this week! (I purposely made a huge amount so id be able to enjoy it for lunch.)
Thank you for posting such excellent recipes!
Just made this and it was great! I doubled the quinoa and veggies, and make 3 times the sauce, which I think was the right proportion. I couldn’t find my mandolin, so just sliced the cabbage very, very thin.
This was delicious, easy, and will make some great lunches this week after a wonderful dinner tonight.
Hi Kate, I love your recipes! And, a BIG THANK YOU for your hard work in adding the nutritional info. I just looked at 2 recipes (including this one) and was not able to see any nutritional info?!?! This is what comes up when I click on the nutrition info link:
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Is it listed somewhere else?
Thanks!
Hi Cindy—belated apologies for the slow response. I’ve been having some issues with my nutrition provider but they should be all fixed now.
Can you use crunchy peanut butter for this recipe?
That shouldn’t pose a problem! It will just add a little more texture to an already texture-rich salad.
I made this the other day for dinner and it was delicious! I had to swap out a few things – I couldn’t find any decent snow peas or snap peas so I used shelled edamame instead and I also didn’t have cilantro so used flat-leaf parsley. Still really tasty and that peanut sauce is so flavorful! The salad didn’t take much time to put together either. I thought the serving size was quite generous for 4 – thankfully, I had leftovers for lunch.
Great substitutions since you didn’t have some of the ingredients! Thanks for sharing!
It’s amazing! Made a huge batch and we are eating it for lunch every day this week!
That is awesome, Heather! Happy to hear you like it! I really appreciate your review and comment.
I actually ordered your friends new cookbook yesterday, and am ordering yours tomorrow. Thanks ladies for so many great recipes to add to our list!
This is the prettiest salad I’ve ever made. I had my doubts about the quinoa tasting flavorful enough with the vegetables. Then I poured on the peanut sauce dressing. Oh, my. Flavor explosion. Thai peanut sauce has got to be one of the best foods on the planet. I’ve forwarded the recipe to several friends.
Pretty and tasty are always great compliments! Glad you were surprise how well the quinoa was with the dressing :) I appreciate you sharing the recipe and for your review, Hannah.
I love this salad. I’ve been pretty much making it once a week because i still have red cabbage. I add edamame to it and find it goes well. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
You are welcome! I am happy you love it, Madalina.
I made this salad a few months back and it was scrumptious.
Tonight I’m making Vietnamese rice paper rolls, and decided the dressing from this salad would be perfect as a dipping sauce! I make a slight modification by replacing the honey/maple syrup with sweet chilli sauce, and I triple the ginger because I love fresh grated ginger :)
I am a big fan of ginger myself so sounds wonderful! Thank you for sharing and for your review, Karen. :)
Really good. I may up the cabbage and carrot by half a cup.
Thank you, Tom for your review!
this is everything it promises to be… crunchy, flavorful, healthy..and awesome. another great recipe from this website.
thank you so much.
Great to hear! Thanks for your review. If you would want to leave a star review, I would appreciate it!
So good!
Thank you for the review, Kayla!
I made this using millet and the millet didn’t turn out well at all for some reason. The peanut sauce was fantastic though. I will make this again using quinoa. I did use 1 cup millet with two cups water and after 20 minutes (I left it uncovered) the millet tasted bitter and uncooked (after I drained it of extra water). Totally not sure what I did wrong there. Other than that I didn’t really make any changes. Really great salad due to the sauce.
Oops I figured out what I did wrong. I took something from the wrong bin at Whole Foods :) Will make again and I’m sure it will taste much better.
Hmmm, sounds like your millet needed longer than 20 minutes since the water wasn’t all absorbed yet. I’m glad you still enjoyed it, and I know it’s awesome with quinoa!
I just started eating vegetarian in November of last year. I found this site two weeks ago, started with the veggie sushi bowls, then this recipe and both were phenomenal! My husband ate two servings of this recipe he liked it so much (and he isn’t necessarily trying to eat vegetarian). I ordered your book while on vacation last week and I cannot wait to try all of the yummy recipes!
I’m happy you came across the blog and got the book! I would love to hear what you think of the book when you get it. I am sure you won’t be disappointed :) Thanks so much, Megan for your comment and review.
YO I LOVE THIS RECIPE!! I’ve made it two weeks in a row now. So simple and fresh. I’ve used half red cabbage and half Napa cabbage both times, and the second time I added lacinato kale and my boyfriend sautéed some tofu for the top. It’s definitely going in my rotation of dinner recipes!
Delicious!! This is a great salad, and especially right now with cabbage in season. Thanks for sharing!
This is so good! I’ve made it twice now. The second time was for today’s lunch where I ended up “sampling” more than 1/4 of the veggie / sauce mixture while the quinoa was cooling. Then proceeded to have another serving with slightly warm quinoa mixed in. So good that I couldn’t help myself!
The cooks right! I think that is a great problem to have. Thanks, Andria for your review!
Would this be okay without the sesame oil?
You will miss out on some key flavor in the dressing. It’s wonderful! If you don’t have it, you can still make the dressing. But I highly recommend keeping it in, if you can!
I toasted some sesame seeds and added that to the dressing. It tasted wonderful but I will get some sesame oil for next time :)
This salad is wonderful! The crunch of the veggies is so satisfying and the peanut sauce is just perfect!
I love the crunch too! Thank you, Anne for your review.
YUM!! This salad is colorful, filling, and delicious! I’ve made it twice now and both times my meat-loving husband has gone back for seconds. I love the crunchiness of the veggies and the peanut sauce is to die for. I can’t wait to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!
The leftovers are my favorite! The flavors really come out. Thanks for the review and for sharing, Meg!
Hi Kate,
I was wondering if I have a sesame allergy, what you would recommend to substitute the sesame oil in the peanut dressing? This recipe looks amazing and would love to try and make this!
Hi Darrien – You can substitute another neutral oil, like olive oil or something along those lines. Obviously, it won’t provide the same taste but you should still have success with the dressing. Let me know how it works for you!
Delicious! I added some lightly steamed broccoli in place of the snap peas and used some vegetable broth to cook the quinoa, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. It was a hit with the whole family! With it’s gorgeous colours, big flavour, nutritious and inexpensive ingredients, I think that this is going to be my new go-to contribution for potlucks!
Awesome! Thanks for sharing and for the review.
This is my new favourite recipe! I make it at least once a week but soon as it’s finished I am already craving more.
Hooray! Thank you, Harriet. I’m glad it’s a favorite. If you want to leave a star review since you like it so much, that would be great.
I took this salad to a picnic and it was a big hit! I did add some salt to taste tho, otherwise followed recipe. Thank you!
That’s great! Thank you, for the review and comment.
This was DElicious! Will definitely make again! and again and again…..
Great! If you would want to leave a star review, Allison, that would be great. :) Glad this is one you will make again!
5 stars!!!
This is one of my new favourites -5 stars! Perfect blend of flavours. This will be a new regular salad in my kitchen.
Wonderful, Angela! Thank you for your review.
LOVE THIS! FWIW, I use one of those cut-proof gloves when I shred the cabbage on the mandoline. :)
Thank you! That’s a great idea. Thanks for your review.