When we were putting together our 2020 trends post our Product Director Brian volunteered to make larb — a traditional Laotian dish. Going above and beyond, he made it vegan so it fit into our other “going meatless” trend, too.
Once we started smelling the aromatic cilantro, basil and sweet chilies coming out of the test kitchen, we all congregated hoping for a sample. It was so GOOD we had to share the really simple recipe. (And it looked good on our serving ware, too!)
This recipe serves 4. Double for 8 servings or 3-4 appetizer plates.
Ingredients
Skillet Mixture:
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 large shallots, thinly sliced – or substitute 2 thinly sliced scallions
- 2 Thai red chilis (1 for cooking, set aside 1 for garnish) – or to taste
- 1 pounds vegan crumbles (Beyond, Morning Star or other) – for non-vegan recipe, use ground chicken or turkey
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/4 cup chopped mint
- 1/8 cup finely chopped Thai basil
Sauce Mixture:
- 2 tbsp Lime juice
- 2 tbsp Thai sweet chili sauce
- 2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce or aminos (for non-vegan recipe, use fish sauce)
- 1-2 tsp Sriracha – or to taste
- 1 tsp brown sugar
Serve With:
- Brown rice or rice/quinoa blend
- Lettuce cups, Boston leaf, small flour tortillas, or bao buns
- Cilantro chopped (save a few un-chopped sprigs for presentation)
- Thai Basil (save a few un-chopped leaves for presentation)
- 2 Limes – cut in 1/8 size wedges
Directions
- Mix all the sauce ingredients (lime, chili sauce, fish sauce, Sriracha, and brown sugar) together in a bowl and set aside.
- Heat the oil and sauté the sliced garlic over medium heat for about a minute to release flavor. Add the vegan meat substitute and simmer for 4-5 minutes (or according to manufacturer’s instructions). If substituting chicken or turkey, increase to 6 minutes and be sure internal temperature exceeds 160 degrees F.
- Stir in the shallots (or scallions) and Thai peppers. Simmer for another minute and then remove from heat.
- Fold in the mint, basil, cilantro and sauce mixture.
- Place larb mixture and rice in separate serving bowls or pans and top with a garnish of Thai pepper slices, cilantro and basil. Then, present on a platter with lettuce leaves or tortillas, lime wedges, and sriracha.
- ENJOY
- For our Larb Lettuc Wraps Platter, we used a Lunara platter (#123518BR), Frostone Naturals Bamboo bowl (#MGN65WHBAM)
- Larb Lettuce Wraps for One are served on our Barnwood Collection rectangle tray (#10019), with our Tri-Ply mini server (#CW2056)
- To serve the Larb Taco dish, we used our taco taxi (#10278BK) on our small Sheet Pan Servers (#1006AS)
- Last, the Larb Appetizers used our NEW mini melamine servers (#10317W for the spoon) on our popular Lindenwood platter (#10254)
