The Best Thai Dishes for Hot Weather

Thai people are experts at this 😉

Sawaddee ka! 🙏🏼

I just came back from 3.5 week in Thailand, and even in the Thai rainy season where temperature isn’t the highest (“only” 35-39°C), at times it felt intolerable 🥵.

Needless to say, we have a lot of dishes that are well suited to hot weather. When it comes to refreshing but filling and flavorful salads, I think we’re experts!

These are the dishes to make when it’s too hot to think too much about food buuuut… if you’re like me, you’re always hungry enough to go for a “little something something” 😉.

Corn & Cucumber Salad - Tum Tang Kao Poad

This Corn & Cucumber Salad is one of my favorite pounded salads (the other more famous pounded salad is green papaya salad (som tum). What’s important here is the pounding technique. Once you’re familiar with it, you can change the vegetables to anything you like!

Japanese Deep Roasted Sesame Salad Dressing

Ok, so this recipe isn’t technically a salad… or even Thai for that matter. But it is the. most. amazing dressing you may ever eat. I like to say you could put this on cardboard and enjoy it! Japanese Deep Roasted Sesame Salad Dressing is the dressing that makes me eat more salad and it’s a must for summer months.

Thai Salad with Peanut Dressing - Salad Kaeg

Salad Kaeg is one of the most popular dishes of Muslim Thai cuisine. The peanut dressing is spicy and rich and so good with almost any veggie. You can make the dressing on its own and keep it in the fridge for up to a week (probably even longer) and it can be frozen. It’s also great for dipping meats or tofu!

Rainbow Rice Salad - Khao Yum

Khao (or Kao) Yum is a beautiful dish from Southern Thailand. It’s incredibly colourful, delicious and absolutely loaded with veggies. I’ll even show you how to colour the rice with the help of some other veggies!

Almond Agar Jelly Fruit Salad

This is a “dessert salad” :) I was obsessed with this Almond Agar Jelly Fruit Salad when I was a kid. This version is more sophisticated than the packaged mix + canned fruit cocktail I had as a child, but it’s still really easy to make. It’s beautiful, and delightfully refreshing chilled dessert for summer!