THE BEST HEALTHY THAI FOODS IN IRVING, TX
This is a quite complicated topic since there are a lot of different Thai dishes available in the market ranging from spicy, greasy, fried, with soup, up to fresh, and vegetable galore. Traditional Thai food is known to be healthy. They use natural fresh ingredients and herbs to cook the dishes. However, in today’s time, it will surprise you how much sugar or MSG they use in cooking Thai dishes.
- Som Tam or Green Papaya Salad
Som Tam or Green Papaya Salad is widely known and available in the market. It has shredded green papaya, tomatoes, string beans, dried shrimp, garlic, chilies, peanuts, eggplant, and carrots.
There are variations of this Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam):
Som Tam Thai – The dressing is sweet and sour, one of the mildest versions of Som Tam.
Som Tam boo pla ra – This version of Som Tam uses fermented fish sauce and crab.
Tam ba – Tam ba literally translates to “jungle” which is a perfect name for the dish because it includes all sorts of things, plus freshwater snails.
Tam Sua – This version includes fermented fish sauce, green papaya, and rice noodles.
- Yam Mamuang or Green Mango Salad
Green Mango Salad is actually quite similar to Som Tam, except that it is made from Green Mango rather than Green Papaya. This dish is a salad with the perfect amount of acidic flavor. The palm sugar that is added to this salad will surprise you because it adds a great deal of taste to this delicacy.
This dish is eaten as a healthy snack because it is packed with high protein and nutrition. Oftentimes, you can order it with a grilled chicken and sticky rice with a dash of chili sauce to give the dish some additional punch for your taste buds.
- Pad Pak Ruam Mit or Stir-fried Vegetables
Stir-fried Vegetables Thai recipe is a great way to liven up the taste of vegetables, and served with rice. It is a satisfying meal that is low on calories and very healthy. There’s a term in Thai called “ahan dtam song,” which means along the lines of “made to order,” and it usually refers to fresh stir fried Thai dishes – because you put in your order before it’s cooked. Pad pak ruam mit is just a stir fried combination of whatever vegetables are on hand at the moment. When you order, to make it a bit more healthy, you might want to ask for it with “nam man nidnoy” which means “just a little oil”.
- Pad Pak Gachet or Stir-fried Water Mimosa
The tough textured vegetable is packed with earthy flavor and usually, it is stir fried up with a generous amount of garlic, chilies and flavorful sauce. It is a glorious mess of chewiness that is like unraveling the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes just before you. The light oyster sauce with a squirt of fermented soybeans soaks into the stocks of water mimosa which makes each stem like a straw full of flavor! Yummy!
- Jim Jum or Thai Hot Pot
It’s hot pot time! Hotpot is such a great way to share a meal with family and friends that is why Thailand also made a Thai version of this ever popular food!
Jim Jum is traditionally made with chicken or pork and fresh herbs such as galangal, sweet basil, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves. It is cooked in a small clay pot on a charcoal stove. It is often served with nam chim. You can easily order a pot of jim jum without getting any pork and just enjoying the basket of vegetables and the mungbean clear noodles.
Knowing what to order, and how to order it, can give you the upper hand when it comes to eating healthy Thai food. Trying something new is a sign of bravery, but trying something new with a flinch of knowledge is called wisdom.
