Thai Shrimp Mango Salad

Dynamic Flavors

One bite of our spicy shrimp green mango salad and it’s like a taste explosion of flavors and textures in your mouth.

You can get most of these basic ingredients in a regular grocery store, if mangoes are in season. If you want to delve more into Thai cooking, be sure to check out our post about Essential Thai Herbs and Spices.

Where to Buy Green Mangoes?

Green mangoes are unripe mangoes. 9 times out of 10 you can find them right in your regular grocery store as they are always super green when they pick them. However, you can also buy unripe raw green mangoes in Asian markets.

If you are not going to make your Thai Shrimp Mango Salad for a few days, make sure that you refrigerate your raw mango so that they do not ripen. The goal is for the mangoes to remain unripe, so they are sour with delicious mango aromatics. Green mangoes are sublime in a salad and really refreshing in the hot summer months of the year. You can also use green papaya as a replacement for green mango in this salad recipe.

How to Prepare Green Mango

Wear gloves if you are sensitive. You can either peel with a peeler or use a sharp paring knife to remove the skin. Then, you have a choice. You can either use a mandolin or grater or julienne slice the green mango. If you prefer, you can grate the mango for a delicious finer textured grated mango salad.

We chose to julienne slice the raw mango as we had a previous incident with a mandolin that led to whole series on Healthy World Cuisine called “Recipes you can make with only 9 fingers”. Be careful, when using a mandolin or cutting mango. Use a very sharp knife as both the skin and flesh are really firm.

The inside of mango has a pit that can be discarded. The raw mango gives this spicy shrimp salad fun crunchy texture and a delicious addictive sour bite.

Wear Gloves when Peeling Green Mango

Did you know that, “The skin of some varieties of green mango contain oils that can be irritating to those who have a sensitivity to poison ivy or oak, which is a distant relative of the mango. However, those with sensitivities to the skin generally don’t experience any irritation from the flesh.” According to Specialty Produce.

Just to let you know we are severely sensitive to poison ivy and poison oak. We can just look at poison ivy plant and have a rash everywhere that requires medical attention. We cut the unripe mango with our bear hands and had not problems or skin irritations at all. So, you probably won’t either, it is just good to know.

Our recommendation is to wear gloves when removing the skin of the green mango. It is just that skin of the raw mango that has this potential but NOT the fruit inside.

Ingredients for Salad

• Green mangoes are usually green all over and are firm and hard to the touch. Unlike a ripe mango, green mangoes are very firm to the touch and do not give when you squeeze it gently.
• Shrimp or prawns – poached but if you are vegan or vegetarian can swap out with fried tofu.
• Fresh herbs of choice – we used cilantro, and Thai basil only because we are going these in our herb garden but also lovely with mint and regular Western basil.
• Prik Nam Pla Sauce is the delicious cilantro lime dressing for our Asian salad. This incredible Thai Condiment sauce has all the flavor profiles going on; sour, sweet, spicy, savory and funky. It is made with fresh limes, fish sauce, Thai bird chilis, brown sugar (or sugar alternative of choice), green onions and cilantro. . Make extra as it is so good, we love to slather it on everything like our Thai Pomelo Crab Salad Avocados, Tropical Thai Swordfish, Thai Firecracker Shrimp Party Appetizer,Thai Grilled Chicken Tenderloins , eggs and anything else your little heart desires.
• Toasted peanuts for that addictive crunch

Serve as a Tossed Salad or in Lettuce Wrap

Mother Nature has been serving up some pretty hot and steamy days. Our Thai Shrimp Mango Salad is a perfect idea to keeping both you and your kitchen cool and comfortable. Our Healthy Chicken Lettuce Wraps are another delicious idea for sharing in a lettuce cup.

If you want to serve as a side or main salad, we really like to keep the tails on the shrimp because it makes for such a beautiful presentation.

Of course, you will want to remove the shrimp tails if serving as a lettuce wrap. However, for the photo op, we left the tails on so that the shrimp showed brightly. If you use a sugar alternative of choice instead of brown sugar or palm sugar, this recipe is low carb.

Thai Spicy Southern Kitchen

Who is kidding who! Everything in Thailand is spicy. Right? Whether you are enjoying a recipe in Northern East Thailand like our Simple Spicy Thai Hot Pot .

Or a recipe from South Bangkok like our Tropical Thai Swordfish.

All recipes have one common denominator- CHILI and not any chili but the little bit mighty Thai bird chili. Don’t let the size of a bird chili fool you. These little Thai bird chilies pack a BIG punch.

Did you know that an average Thai chili pepper is a 50,000 to 100,000 on the Scoville heat units (SHU), according to Pepper Scale, and is about 6 to 40 times hotter than an average jalapeño? Woah doggie! That’s HOT!

How to Control the Heat and Spiciness?

The great new about this Thai Shrimp Mango Salad is that you can control the heat level by adjusting the amount of chili you add to the recipe. In addition, you can exchange the Thai bird chilis with another chili like that jalapeno or even just a pinch of dried red pepper flakes. We are all about using what you have on hand.

MILD : If you like your food mild, then you can either add the smallest amount of chili or just add a bashed chili to let the flavors get into the dish without adding actual bird chili slices.

HOT: On the other hand, if you like your dishes with medium heat intensity add just a few slices of the chili peppers but do not add any seeds from the chili peppers. If you are a heat lover, the chop in the whole bird chilis in with the seeds.

Thai Bird Chili Peppers Protocol 101!

Our 2 little cents if you are new to using fresh chili peppers. Do not touch anything on your face or anywhere for that matter on your body once you have started to cut up chilis. Trust us, if you do that just once, you will never, EVER, do that again.  

Some people even wear gloves. It is best to make sure that you wash your hands well, with soap, after touching chili peppers. (Ok, the nurse will now step down from the soap box)