Two salads. Same vibrant flavours. Completely different vibes.
In this video, I’m showing you how to take a handful of fresh, everyday ingredients and turn them into two addictive dishes you’ll want on repeat.
✨ First up – Crispy Chilli Rice Salad
Golden, crunchy rice tossed with edamame, cucumber, avocado, fresh herbs, and a zingy tahini dressing. It’s crispy, spicy, creamy, and utterly moreish.
✨ Then – Soba Noodle Salad
Using many of the same ingredients, we switch to silky buckwheat noodles for a lighter, slurp-worthy version that’s perfect for warm days, meal prep, or speedy weeknight dinners.
Why you’ll love them:
✔️ Big on flavour, short on prep time
✔️ Customisable with whatever’s in your fridge
✔️ Vegetarian-friendly (add your favourite protein if you like)
✔️ Fresh, nourishing, and seriously satisfying
Full Recipes:
💚 Viral Crispy Chilli Rice Salad (Serves 4)
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked white rice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp chilli oil (adjust to taste)
2 Lebanese cucumbers, thinly sliced
½ cup mint leaves, chopped
½ cup coriander, chopped
1 cup frozen edamame beans, thawed
3 spring onions, finely sliced
⅓ cup roasted salted peanuts, chopped
1 large avocado, diced
Creamy Tahini Dressing:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 large lemon
3 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp pure maple syrup
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground ginger
Method:
1. Toss cooked rice with soy sauce, sesame oil and chilli oil. Spread on a lined tray and bake at 200°C for 20–25 mins until golden and crispy, stirring halfway.
2. In a large bowl, combine cucumber, herbs, edamame, spring onion and peanuts. Add crispy rice and toss.
3. Whisk dressing ingredients until smooth. Pour over salad and toss to coat.
Top with avocado before serving.
💚 Soba Noodle Salad (Serves 4)
Ingredients:
180g dried soba noodles
2 Lebanese cucumbers, sliced into thin rounds
1/2 cup mint leaves, roughly chopped
1/2 cup coriander leaves, roughly chopped
1 cup frozen edamame beans, thawed
3 spring onions, finely sliced
⅓ cup roasted salted peanuts, chopped
1 large avocado, diced
Creamy tahini dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Method:
1. Cook soba noodles according to packet instructions. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop cooking.
2. In a large bowl, combine noodles, cucumber, mint, coriander, edamame, and spring onion. Toss gently.
3. Whisk together all dressing ingredients until smooth and creamy. Adjust seasoning to taste.
4. Pour dressing over the salad and toss to coat. Top with diced avocado just before serving.
If you try either of these recipes, tag me so I can see your creations! 🥗✨
#ViralSalad #CrispyRiceSalad #SobaNoodleSalad #HealthyRecipes #VeganRecipes
Okay, so I have two amazing salads here. Amazing. Amazing. They’re quite similar, but what I’ve chosen to do with them is change up. One has a sticky chili rice as the main component, and one has sober noodles, which I love a sober noodle salad, so I just had to try it with sober noodles. I’m going to start off with some cooked white rice. So, I’ve got about two cups here. And so, you can make that. It can be a day old. It can be sache rice to make your life really easy. Here I’ve got a little bit of soy sauce and some sesame oil. Don’t worry about stirring it yet. Then we’re going to add our chili oil to the rice. And a little tip with chili oil, try and get your spoon down into the jar to get some of the goody chunky little pieces cuz that’s what’s really going to flavor and create wonderful texture within the rice. And then we’re basically going to just stir that all through so it just coats it all. get a nice orangey color from the chili. Now, we’re going to pour this as sort of as a thin layer. Um, it doesn’t have to be perfect or as thin as you can get it, but we’re trying to put a nice single layer on there so that when it goes in the oven, you’re going to get a whole lot of different textures. With a fork or whatever you’ve got, you’re just kind of going to spread it into that nice thin layer. That is ready to go into the oven. Now, depending on your settings and your oven, it can be slightly different. I’m going to go with about 30 minutes on 200°. So, that goes in your oven. Actually should have had this on. So, here’s one that I prepared earlier. And as you can see, if you look really closely, there’s lots of really yummy crispy bits. So you still have some nice soft pieces in the middle, but what the oven’s done also is is created some really crispy, crunchy bits that are going to be so delicious in our salad. Now, we’re going to get the fresh component kind of done. You can absolutely do this just by slicing with a knife. I just find a mandolin is easy. It’s quick. It keeps them all even sizing, but you definitely don’t need a mandoline for this. I’m going to go with about 3 to four cucumbers. So, that’s given us a fair bit. We’re going to throw in our cucumber rounds. Then, I’m going to get some spring onion. Um, I’ve got about five here. So, let’s roll with that. Um, okay. So, ends removed. We’re just going to slice that up. Just nice thin slices. And what I find with spring onion is the white part is your strongest part. So you can always skip that and start a little bit further up because it is more mild as you go on. And I always love to include some of these the end more so the ends because you get a beautiful green color and they’re not as strong at all. So they’re quite pleasant to eat. Throw those in with our cucumbers. I’ve got some edetami here. So if you have a look in your supermarket, they you can buy them like this frozen. And then I usually just pour them out into a bowl like that and and let them sit for a while. But if you don’t have that time, you can thaw them in the microwave. Then I’m going to add some fresh herbs. Asian herbs are like my favorite of all time. So we’ve got some fresh mint here and some coriander. Um I also love Thai basil or Vietnamese mint. Any of those herbs work in this. So if you want to give a really kind of different and beautiful flavor, Vietnamese mint can be swapped for the mint. It is really, really yummy. We’re just chopping up that coriander. Slicing up that coriander. And that’s going to go in. And then we’ve got some mint leaves here. Might start off with about half of that. Fold those over. And then we’re just slicing those. I really like big bits of herbs in my food. That’s just a personal preference. Feel free to go nuts and and slice and chop it up more. I’ve got about half a cup of roasted peanuts here. And I’m actually using salted today just cuz it adds obviously a salty element to the salad. Unsalted is fine. You will just then have to add perhaps a little bit of salt to your dressing. Pour them on your board and then you’re just giving them a slight sort of bit of a rough chop. And this will be to your preference as well. I love it in salads. So I’ll sort of just give this a rough once over a couple of times. The other thing you can do as a bit of shortcut is now in the supermarkets they’ve got chopped I think it’s peanuts and they’re all chopped ready to go for you and you can throw those in rather than doing this. If you wanted to make it nut-free you could definitely throw in fried shellots. Obviously a very different ingredient but they still add that crunch and texture that we’re looking for and pop those into. Okay. So, now we’re going to add our crispy chili rice part to our salad. Lovely. Then I’m going to toss all this through. So, if you have a look there, you can see all the yummy components. Really different and yummy elements that I wouldn’t usually put in a salad, which is why I decided to choose this one for today. So, now we’re going to make the yummy creamy tahini dressing. So, first I’m adding in my extra virgin olive oil. And then I’m going to add quite a bit of lemon juice. I’m adding a third of a cup here, but that’s for the quantity I’m making. Squeeze that in. Great. I might even need a little bit more. Shouldn’t be cutting on the bench. My husband might get angry. Then we’re going to add for this quantity 3 tablespoon of tahini. And if you’re not sure what tahini is, it’s pretty much just like a sesame paste. So there’s one. I’m actually just going to start with two today and see how it goes. You could also use a white miso paste or you could use peanut butter. And the peanut butter would be fine with the peanuts in there. It’s not going to be peanut overload. And then we’ve got 2 tablespoons roughly of pure maple syrup. I’m just guessing here. Let’s see how we go. I’ve got a little bit of ground cumin. That gives a really lovely different flavor as well. Ginger. You can grate the ginger if you like, but I’m actually just going to chop it quite finely. And you’re probably going to need about this much. And the ginger is one of my favorite parts of this dressing. It just really adds that really potenty freshness, but just the flavor that it gives the dressing. Obviously ties in beautifully with the Asian sort of flavors that are in the main salad. That’s probably enough for me. As I said, I don’t mind getting a little bit of a chunk of ginger while I eat the salad. And then we’re going to give our dressing a good stir. If you’ve got a whisk, even better cuz that tahini paste can often be a little bit hard to break down. So, stir, stir, stir. And back the other way. I don’t think it needs salt and pepper. I mean, as I said, you’ve got your salted peanuts in the salad. So, you don’t want to overs salt and then it’s just sort of too much. Okay. So, there we go. All right. Let’s have a little taste. Yum, yum, yum. I actually think it needs a little bit more lemon. And this will thin it out slightly. I am going to add a tablespoon or two of water to it to make it a little bit thinner. Now, all right. H great. That’s better. So, even the water at the end there, it just allows it to not be so so so thick. Um and it’ll coat those ingredients in the salad. The reason I don’t add avocados yet is because you can dice it all up. You can put it all in. And then once I throw the dressing on and toss it all, it all gets broken up. It gets kind of spread and you don’t get those lovely pieces of avocado that we want to see at the end of the salad. So, I’ve got a bowl here. As I said, this is a wonderful salad if you’re entertaining. That’s why I have a bigger bowl. But if you’re just having it as a delicious salad, obviously you won’t need the transfer into the big bowl. My biggest tip when you make up a salad dressing from a recipe, don’t just assume it’s the right amount and pour it all over the salad because you can drench the salad and often ruin it. So, um I will add a little bit first and then stop there. So, we’ve still got quite a bit left, but we can add more if we need. We can drizzle it on top. And then we’re going to coat that salad in that yummy creamy dressing. I can already see that I’m going to need more dressing, but that’s fine. That’s what my mom used to say. You can always add more. You can’t take it out. There we are. And then I’m going to add a little bit more, but this is when you can borderline just go overboard. So add a little bit. That should be enough. Drip. Drip. And then go again. So it looks nice and coated and wet, but not drenched. I’ve actually got two avocados here, but they were just on the smaller side, so I grabbed two. Usually one large will be absolutely fine, but I’m just going to cut that open. And then it’s a beautiful, lovely green. So, like I always do with an avocado, nice thin slices with a butter knife cuz it kind of just rolls off the avocado, which is really great. Beautiful. And then around the outside of the avocado, diced pieces are going to work well in this. Grab a fresh spoon and basically stick that under there and just roll it all out. And then use your fingers to throw it all in your salad. And then we will do the other side. I might only put half of this side in. And then we’ll leave a little bit for the top. And then judge it. If it’s quite a big salad and it’s a small avocado, you can always add the second one if you need. Run your knife around using that spoon to pop it out. And I’m just going to grab about half to pop in your salad. There we are. So, I’m going to give that a gentle toss so that we don’t crush all of our avocado. And we’re ready to serve. So, we’re going to pour that in. Look at all those yummy cucumber rounds as well. all coated in the delicious dressing. Get all your little goodies from the bottom, all your little crunchy bits. Then I’ve got my little bits of avocado left over. If you really really want to impress and you want to make it look really green and vibrant, you could have kept a couple of edamami beans and just pop them on top and a little bit of herbs if you like, but that’s also just to make it look pretty. You can be the judge of whether you want more salad dressing on it or not. I’m actually just going to leave it for now and I’m going to taste it without the extra salad dressing. So, I’m going to try and get Well, lots of you goody bits in there. Okay. Yum. I hope you guys don’t mind the sound of someone chewing food. Just delicious. It’s so vibrant and exciting. Perfect for any season. It’s just a ripper salad. So, give it a go. So, this one is my sober noodle salad. No, wait. Hold on. Oh my god, I don’t have a title for it yet. I’m now going to show you how to do this delicious salad, but using sober noodles as the main bulk of the salad instead of our crispy chili rice. As we can see, my my pot’s going a bit nuts here. We’ll turn that down. And so, I’m going to pop the sober noodles into boiling hot, rapidly moving water. I’ve got two bundles here, so it’s about 270 g. So, you’re getting them all underneath. Little tip with sober noodles is they can overcook really really quickly. So it’s 3 to four minutes for this brand that I’m using, but make sure you check the back of the packet. And then we’re going to grab them out, run them through some cold water so they stop cooking. Um because we’re using them for a salad. It’s not for a hot dish. That’s probably been about a minute and a half. So keep them moving. And then we’re going to start putting this salad together. So I’ve got my cucumber rounds. Add those into your salad. Don’t let me forget my noodles. Just going to try one. They’re nearly already done. That’s how quick and easy they are. I’m going to throw in some edamami beans. Usually I would have a few more, but I used more for my other salad that I made. Don’t waste that one. And then we’re going to add some sliced spring onion. And I’m just going to get my strainer now. I actually want my other strainer. That one’s not the best one. So I’m going to turn that off. They’re ready to go. And then I’m just going to strain it over by the sink. Then we’re going to run a little bit of cold water through it to cool it down and stop the cooking process. Okay, that’s good. And then I’ll just pop them back in my pot to sort of strain a bit of that water while we finish the salad. Okay. And sometimes if you let your sober noodles sit for a while, the moisture can sort of dry out of them and they become a bit sticky. So right before you go to use them, you can run a little bit of water through them. But I actually am going to have the opposite problem here where they’re actually a little bit wet. If you’ve got a little bit of paper towel, what you can do is just kind of wrap it around them and give a gentle Don’t squeeze too hard because you’ll actually break the noodles. But you can just kind of give a gentle squeeze to soak up a bit of that excess moisture from the noodles so that they’re not sloppy when you add them to your salad. Cut back. Here I’ve got a mix of coriander and mint chopped. This is a little bit of a cheats process here, but I just had this from making up a very similar salad before that has the same ingredients. And then some salted crunchy peanuts in there, too. So, we’re just going to pop those straight in. There we go. You know what? I’m actually I’ve got my clean hands. I don’t like to wear gloves at home, but you can just use your hands to bring all that together. There we go. It’s flinging about everywhere. Love making a mess in the kitchen. Separate all your cucumber rounds. That’s looking good. I am going to pour in some dressing to coat the salad. So, we’re adding some yummy creamy dressing. Grab two spoons and just give that a really lovely toss. So, you can see there it’s all creamy and coated. Add some avocado. And for this one, I’m going to leave it sort of in slices, but half slices. So, we kind of just slice down the avocado. And then I’m just going to do a diagonal across halfway. And then wrap around and you’ll get some beautiful slices that come out of that. And then I just use my fingers or a spoon. And then you’re going to get lovely pieces of avocado to go all in the salad. We’re going to plate this up. Grab a bundle of your noodles. Don’t drop them. There we go. Look, you can already see how the wonderful dressing is coating all those noodles. So, they’re going to be really covered but not drenched in that wonderful creamy tahini dressing. Some more noodles. Can’t believe I haven’t dropped any. It’s a miracle. And then we’re going to get lots of these goodies for the top. There we go. Look. Yum. My kind of salad. Great. Great. Great. Few more cucumbers cuz we love a cucumber. Okay, great. And then I’ve got some chopped peanuts just for the top. Just add a little bit of crunch. and texture. Can we guess what time it is? It’s tasting time. So, I’m going to get a fork and then we’re going to roll. Roll. Roll. So, there’s our nice noodles. I feel like I haven’t got any of the goodies yet, so hang on. All right. Here we go. Yum. I can’t work out whether I prefer the crispy rice or the sober noodles. So different. The crispy rice adds lots of Yeah. crunch and texture, whereas the noodles are sort of smooth and they give you like that bulk that makes you feel really satisfied. And but either way, both are absolutely delicious. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that one in front of the camera. Let’s see how we go. That’s what I think I also really love about a noodle salad. You can just roll it all up on your fork and just shove it in and enjoy. That’s what food is meant for, for enjoyment.
Dining and Cooking