Spicy Thai Pork Tenderloin Salad Recipe (2024)

Tasty & quick. I found it a little fussy to slice/grate all the ingredients for the dressing, and next time I make it I'll just blitz everything in the blender as she has you do for the same ingredients for the marinade. The salad has so much texture that I don't think you'd notice the change. A keeper.

I'm going to try it with no sugar at all. I have made similar dishes without the sugar and no one misses it (even the people who eat sugar).

This was terrific. I substituted skinless, boneless chicken breast for the pork tenderloin and it worked beautifully. The marinade left the chicken incredibly flavorful and tender. We'll try this with steak next.

This salad was delicious! It would be great with any protein. I added pieces of mango which was a great addition.

If Melissa's name is on a recipe, I will always try it. This was the best salad ever, no need for any changes IMO.

Quick, delicious and easy. Even easier would be to zap the dressing/marinade in the food processor as suggested by another commenter. Used a packaged shredded salad mix w/ cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, etc.

This was a big hit. More prep and ingredients than I ordinarily like to tackle, but that’s the nature of asian recipes. Note that the brown sugar is portioned; I caught that too late but to no noticeable detriment. Also, rather than broil, I roasted with convection at 500. I always end up with a nicer “brown” than when it try to do it under the broiler.

Simply delicious. I made just as directed, prep over two days. Chop greens and herbs listening to the news while pork broils. Glass of wine as meat rests and dressing mellows the salad. Compose and serve. Life is good.

I went one more round with this recipe. I had leftover pork, cabbage, red pepper and scallions, I lightly sauteed the vegetables, even added a few sliced cucumbers, made more of the dressing, then tossed all of the vegetables and sliced pork with wide, flat rice noodles.

Boneless/Skinless Chicken thighs make for a delicious pork substitute - very moist with the crunchy roughage. They take on the marinade brilliantly.

This was amazing - no real changes except I’m seeing a lot of comments about time. For those who can, put all the dressing ingredients in a food processor and let it go — suddenly you won’t have to chop any of it more than a few times!And for a faster shortcut: a bag of coleslaw mix from the store isn’t much more $ than a head of cabbage. Snag one that’s just cabbage/carrots, mix with the rest of the ingredients and you’ve got a slaw that comes together in no time. Make this!

Made this last night...I could drink the dressing! So good. I followed others' advice of putting all the ingredients for the marinade/dressing into the food processor, but found it a little chunkier than I wanted for the dressing, so I put the remainder into the blender to smooth it out a little more. I also cooked the pork at 500° per recommendations and it came out perfect. Will be making this often.

The entire recipe is very good but the marinade/dressing is absolutely delicious. However when I blended a portion of it for the marinade, it did not make a "paste", more like a purée, so I ended up blending it all. And used it as the salad dressing and also to dress some cold noodles. Everyone really enjoyed it.

If you slice the meat then arrange it nicely it should blend well! Also, slicing and layering avocado on top was a welcome addition.

This is delicious and a great alternative for roasted pork tenderloin and a plain salad. I sued half the sugar and half the fish sauce. The coconut flakes were a great addition that I would not have thought of using. Extra mint and basil as I don't love cilantro. This was a welcomed change of pace for the family. Definitely added to my repertoire.

Excellent. I would add more mint & basil next time because it adds such a big pop of flavor!

I see there are plenty of positive comments about this recipe so I can’t add much, except to say that I agree. The sugar creates a nice brown crust on the outside. The amount of leafy herbs seemed excessive, but it worked well from a taste perspective. I had some very large basil leaves, so I cut them into ribbons. I look forward to making this regularly and will uses some of the advice in the comments to make the prep faster. Thanks!

This was REALLY good! Thank you Melissa Clark. However I cut the cabbage very thin and the salt and sugar in the dressing caused a lot of water to seep out, diluting the dressing. Next time I'll cut the cabbage thicker, and pre-salt and sugar it, then rinse and spin dry to get some of the water out. Also the dressing had too much raw shallot (for me, I'm sensitive to raw onion); next time I'll reduce it. Delicious even so!

The dressing is way too acidic, even with the brown sugar, and I am big into tang! Not to mention, a lot of work for not even a mediocre dressing… better as a marinade, but still wouldn’t make it again. Very meh.

Delicious.

Loved this salad! Didn't have Napa cabbage but I did have bok choy so I chopped up three of those and mixed in some crunchy romaine lettuce. I could definitely see any other proteins such as chicken, cooked shrimp, flank steak slices, and even tofu to add in place of the pork tenderloin. I probably wouldn't marinate the shrimp or tofu that long--may result in rubbery shrimp/tofu but this will remain in the rotation for a nice change of pace.

This was amazing. I made two big changes and it was still great. I blended the whole dressing/ marinade mixture to cut down on the chopping. And I use it to marinate branzino instead of pork. Baked it from frozen for about 25 min and it was awesome. Make this.

This recipe was fantastic! Quick (minus marinating time), easy, and so delicious. The salad was super fresh, the dressing was a little spicy and super flavorful, and you could easily substitute another protein (was thinking tofu would take the marinade really well). Will definitely be making this again!

I just threw the marinade/dressing ingredients in the blender. A tiny bit of honey (no brown sugar), 2 jalapeño and coconut milk as I had no coconut. Marinated for 2 hours, grilled and basted. Absolutely moist and delicious. Made a simpler salad and used reserved dressing to drizzle meat and greens. A winner!

Great marinade and dressing- added coconut milk at the end and it made the dish silky and delicious.

This was absolutely fabulous. Lots of ingredients to prep for the marinade, but chopping efforts are richly rewarded by the KAPOW! of flavors. Didn’t realize we were out of peanuts, so I subbed in macadamia nuts and they were perfect. Perfect late summer meal.

Had all the ingredients for the marinade and pork on hand, but no salad, so tossed rice noodles and vegetables in the dressing instead, really good

I read some of the comments and decided to mix all the marinade/dressing ingredients in a food processor. It wasn’t a paste, but it worked great. I also cooked at 500. Delicious flavors and easy to put together. I don’t love coconut but it worked great with the cabbage.

Followed brooklynjen’s advice and just threw everything for the dressing/marinade in the food processor to cut down on chopping. Otherwise followed recipe as directed (omitting basil and coconut as I didn’t have them on hand) and this turned out amazing.

Ginger is rarely used in Thai cooking. To streamline the recipe, I would take the ginger out. It would make that dish taste more Thai and less Chinese.