If you’ve been to northern Thailand or Laos, you’ve probably had larb moo, or meat salad. It’s unofficially the national dish of Laos and incredibly popular in the Isan region of Thailand.
Meat salad might not sound very appealing, but it’s incredible. Think: juicy minced pork, fish sauce, lime juice, roasted rice, and fresh herbs. Paired with sticky rice balls, it’s absolutely addictive.
The essential ingredient in larb is the toasted sticky rice. It gives everything a nice crunch and roasted toasty fragrance. If you don’t have sticky rice, you can easily toast up some uncooked Jasmine rice instead.
Toasting rice is pretty easy: just pop uncooked rice into a dry pan and toast over medium low heat, while shaking occasionally. After a while, the rice takes on some color and starts to smell amazing – kind of like popcorn. Take your time while you’re toasting, be careful not to burn. Toasting the rice is probably the longest part of this recipe. After that you’re just 10 minutes away from porky, herby heaven.
Larb is classic street food, fast, easy, fun, and most importantly, delicious. It’s usually served with vegetables, lettuce to wrap, and sticky rice – so good! We had ours with both lettuce cups and sticky rice. Sticky rice recipe coming soon!
The next time you’re looking for a quick and easy dinner that’s a bit different, I hope you try this larb. It hits all the right notes: sweet, spicy, salty, and sour.
Larb Moo Pork Larb Recipe – Thai Pork Salad
serves 1 to 2
- 1 tablespoon uncooked sticky rice or jasmine rice
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 pound ground pork
- 1 tablespoon chili flakes
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 lime, juiced, plus extra lime wedges to serve
- 1 – 2 shallots
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 3 green onions, sliced
- 20 leaves fresh mint
- lettuce or Thai sticky rice, to serve
In a small pan, toast the rice over medium low heat, shaking the pan often, about 2-3 minutes. Once golden brown, let cool slightly and move to a mortar and pestle. Crush it into a fine powder. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
In a skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. When hot, add the pork, and brown, breaking into pieces.
Remove from the heat, and stir in the toasted rice powder and chili flakes. Add the sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice. Stir in the shallots, green onions, cilantro, and mint. Mix well and adjust to taste.
Great dish.
looks so tasty!!!
would definetly try making this at home
Such a complicated recipe and you make it look so easy!
Made this dish tonight and it was delicious, but I would make one tweak. Because – holy moly that’s a *lot* of grease! Not certain if the recipe was meant for lean pork, but my ground pork had plenty of its own fat. No need to add oil. I likely would also remove the meat and poured out the excess grease before adding the meat back and adding the remaining ingredients. Also needed a touch more salt. I added chopped toasted cashews even though they are not in the recipe, they are in the picture and I would use them again. Lastly, adding additional fresh mint to the lettuce “taco” or on top of the rice was *everything.*