Indonesian pecel may refer to a fragrant peanut sauce or a combination of the sauce and various vegetables, when it is commonly referred to as a salad. The base of the sauce is prepared with roasted peanuts and spices that typically include chili peppers, palm sugar, garlic, tamarind juice, shrimp paste, kaffir lime leaves, salt, and kencur, an aromatic ginger variety. Usually associated with Java, the sauce is characterized by its distinctive combination of sweet and spicy flavors. When served with rice, the dish goes under the name nasi pecel.
Piyaz is a traditional salad. In most of the country, it's a general term for a dish of dried beans, parsley, onions, and sumac. In Antalya, however, piyaz also contains a rich and smooth sauce consisting of tahini, lemon juice, and vinegar. The beans are topped with the sauce, and the dish is usually dressed with chopped tomatoes, sliced onions, hard-boiled eggs, olive oil, and parsley. Piyaz is often eaten as an accompaniment to köfte and similar grilled meats, but it can also be included in a meze selection.
Smacked cucumber is a traditional Asian dish that’s especially popular in Tibet as a snack for picnicking. The dish is usually made with a combination of cucumbers, garlic, sesame oil, black vinegar, and soy sauce. The cucumber is peeled and smacked with a rolling pin so that it’s bruised and starting to break apart. It’s sliced into chunks and mixed with the rest of the ingredients. The ingredients are tossed well and then served on a large plate. The cucumber is smacked because it will absorb the flavors of garlic, oil, vinegar, and soy sauce even better and it will have a more intense flavor.
Fattoush is a simple salad made with traditional pita bread as a base on which the rest of the ingredients are built on. Pita bread is torn or cut into small bite-sized pieces, then toasted, grilled, or fried. It is then mixed with a variety of vegetables such as lettuce, radish, crunchy cucumbers, cherry tomatoes or regular tomatoes, peppers, onions, and (occasionally) garlic. All ingredients are chopped and cut into pieces and mixed with a generous amount of herbs, most commonly mint and parsley. The final touch to this authentic salad is the dressing, usually made with olive oil, lemon juice, and pomegranate syrup. The key ingredient, next to the crunchy pita bread, is sumac - a spice commonly used in the Levantine area. Sumac can be added to the dressing, and it is usually sprinkled on top of a prepared salad. It gives the dish a slightly tart taste and zest, which perfectly matches with the gentle flavors and aromas of fresh herbs and vegetables. The original fattoush is highly versatile, and other common additions may include crisp pomegranate seeds, olives, yogurt, and feta cheese. It is one of the most famous salads frequently eaten in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. This refreshing salad belongs to a group of dishes popularly called fattat, which use the stale pita, or any other flatbread, as the star ingredient.
Larb, also spelled laap or larp, is a seasoned minced meat salad originating from Laos, where it functions as a national dish, and widely consumed throughout the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. The dish developed among ethnic Lao agrarian communities along the Mekong River basin as a method to process fresh livestock, wild game, or river fish immediately following slaughter, serving as a focal point for communal labor exchanges and ceremonial feasts. Preparation involves finely hand-chopping lean meat and offal, most commonly pork, beef, chicken, duck, or fish, and quickly blanching or cooking it in a small amount of broth before tossing the warm meat with fermented fish sauce (padaek or nam pla), lime juice, ground dried chili flakes, sliced red shallots, chopped mint, cilantro, and culantro. What distinguishes larb from other Southeast Asian seasoned meat preparations is the essential addition of khao khua, a coarse powder produced by dry-roasting raw glutinous rice grains until golden brown and grinding them, which acts as a textural thickening agent that binds the citrus-herb dressing to the minced protein while imparting a roasted, nutty flavor profile. Northern Thai variants (larb Lanna) differ by substituting lime juice and fish sauce with a complex blend of dried spices, including long pepper, dried ginger, and star anise, often incorporating fresh bile or blood for bitterness. Larb is eaten at room temperature or warm during daily family meals, market stalls, and village gatherings across Laos and northern Thailand. Diners eat the dish by hand, rolling small portions of warm steamed sticky rice (khao niao) into balls to scoop up the minced meat alongside raw vegetable garnishes including cabbage wedges, Thai eggplant, green beans, and cucumber slices, pairing the meal with cold lager beer, crushed sugar cane juice, or iced green tea.
Kısır is a classic Turkish salad made with thin bulgur wheat, tomatoes, mint, garlic, parsley, and either lemon juice or sour pomegranate molasses. Red pepper flakes are often added to the salad to make it spicier. Lemon juice is typically used in northwestern Türkiye, while pomegranate molasses is more commonly used in the southeast of the country. The salad is ideal for buffets and meze, but it is also often used as a side dish for a variety of barbecued meat dishes. It is traditionally served cold or at room temperature.
Balilah is a traditional Middle Eastern salad, particularly popular in Saudi Arabia and Syria. It is a simple and healthy snack made primarily from cooked chickpeas. The chickpeas are typically served warm with diced cucumbers and grated beets, and seasoned with a mixture of spices, lemon juice, olive oil, and sometimes garlic and herbs. The core ingredient is chickpeas (in Syria broad beans are also included), which are cooked until tender and then flavored with lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, salt, and sometimes other spices like black pepper, sumac, or paprika. Garlic and fresh herbs, such as parsley, are added for extra flavor. Balilah is usually served warm as a snack or appetizer, often enjoyed as a popular street food and eaten with a spoon or scooped up with bread. It is commonly enjoyed during Ramadan as part of the iftar meal (the meal to break the fast) due to its simplicity and nutritious qualities. It is also a staple at social gatherings and is appreciated for its light, tangy flavor.
Ketoprak is a traditional street food dish that's often described as tofu salad. It's made with a combination of fried tofu, steamed rice cakes, rice vermicelli noodles, bean sprouts, cabbage, and cucumbers. The combination is served in peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce (kecap manis). It's usually topped with fried shallots and krupuk. The dish can be found at numerous ketoprak food carts throughout Jakarta, although there is still an ongoing debate about the origin of the dish – some claim that it was first made in Cirebon because the majority of street food vendors come from Cirebon. The tofu is freshly fried from the food carts, while the other ingredients are prepared in advance. Ketoprak is usually a vegan dish, but it's sometimes topped with a hard-boiled egg which makes it non-vegan.
Som tam is a pounded green papaya salad of Lao origin that became a major part of the food culture of Isan, northeastern Thailand, before spreading throughout the rest of Thailand. It is made by pounding and tossing shredded unripe papaya with chilies, garlic, lime, fermented or fish-based seasonings, tomatoes, and other ingredients in a mortar. In Laos, the closely related form is known as tam mak hoong (ຕຳໝາກຫຸ່ງ), while in Isan the salad commonly appears with pla ra, the fermented fish seasoning closely related to Lao padaek. The sweeter version internationally known as som tam Thai, usually made with palm sugar, fish sauce, dried shrimp, roasted peanuts, long beans, and tomatoes, developed as a central Thai adaptation. The name som tam combines som, referring to sourness, with tam, meaning to pound. The dish belongs to the broader Lao category of tam, in which vegetables and fruits are pounded with chilies, garlic, fermented fish, and acidic seasonings. Lao and Isan food cultures are closely connected by language, migration, geography, and centuries of shared culinary practices. When Lao-speaking populations became incorporated into Siam and later Thailand, especially in the northeast, their foodways became part of what is now identified as Isan cuisine. Som tam therefore entered the wider Thai repertoire primarily through this Lao-Isan culinary connection. Papaya itself is not native to Southeast Asia. Carica papaya originated in tropical America and reached Asia through Spanish and Portuguese maritime networks during the sixteenth century. Once established in mainland Southeast Asia, its firm, mild unripe flesh proved well suited to existing Lao methods of pounding raw fruits and vegetables with salty, sour, and spicy seasonings. The precise date when green papaya became the standard ingredient cannot be established. The earliest currently identified printed Thai recipe specifically called som tam malakor, or papaya som tam, appears in the Bangkok cookbook Tamra Khraawp Lohk from 1929. Another version was recorded in Sai Yaowapa in 1935 as part of khao man som tam. These recipes show that papaya som tam had entered Bangkok culinary writing by the early twentieth century, but they do not establish Bangkok as its birthplace. Rural Lao and Isan foods were much less likely to appear in early printed cookbooks than dishes associated with urban kitchens. Som tam became far more visible across Thailand during the twentieth century as large numbers of people from Isan migrated to Bangkok and other cities. From the mid-twentieth century onward, Isan workers established food stalls and restaurants serving som tam, sticky rice, grilled chicken, and larb. By the 1960s, northeastern food had developed a significant presence in Bangkok, and som tam gradually became an everyday dish throughout Thailand. The defining preparation technique remains the mortar and pestle. Garlic and chilies are usually pounded first, followed by salty, sour, and sometimes sweet seasonings. Long beans and tomatoes are lightly bruised before shredded green papaya is added. A spoon is commonly used together with the pestle to lift and turn the ingredients. The goal is to bruise the papaya enough for the dressing to penetrate while keeping it crisp. Lao and Isan versions generally emphasize fermented fish, acidity, salt, and chili rather than pronounced sweetness. Tam mak hoong commonly uses padaek, while Isan som tam pla ra uses pla ra. Som tam pu pla ra also includes salted field crab. These forms usually contain little or no peanut and dried shrimp. By contrast, som tam Thai typically uses fish sauce instead of strongly fermented fish, more palm sugar, dried shrimp, and roasted peanuts, producing the sweeter profile most familiar outside Thailand. Som tam is therefore best understood as a family of closely related pounded salads rather than one fixed recipe. Green papaya is the best-known base, but cucumber, green mango, corn, fruit, noodles, and other ingredients can be prepared using the same tam technique. Individual vendors also adjust the amount of chili, acidity, sugar, and fermented fish according to preference. The salad is usually prepared to order because its texture is best immediately after pounding. The papaya should remain crisp, the tomatoes lightly crushed, and the dressing concentrated enough to coat the strands without making the salad soupy. In Laos and Isan, som tam is closely associated with glutinous rice. Small portions of sticky rice are eaten by hand alongside the salad, helping moderate the chili and absorb some of the dressing. Grilled chicken is another particularly established accompaniment, and the combination of som tam, sticky rice, and kai yang is now common throughout Thailand. Larb, grilled pork, grilled fish, sausages, pork rind, and fresh or blanched vegetables can also accompany it. Today som tam is one of the most widely recognized foods associated with Thailand, although its culinary roots lie in Lao food culture and the closely related cuisine of Isan. The sweeter som tam Thai dominates many international Thai restaurants, while the more fermented and less sweet forms remain central to everyday eating in northeastern Thailand and Laos. Sticky rice and grilled chicken are its most characteristic pairings, while cold water, soda water, lager, or unsweetened tea suit its chili, acidity, and saltiness.
Sunomono is a popular Japanese cucumber salad seasoned with a lightly sweetened dressing consisting of vinegar and soy sauce. Simple and refreshing, alongside thinly sliced cucumbers it can incorporate various other ingredients such as seafood, seaweed strips, or toasted sesame seeds. It is usually served as an appetizer or a light side dish.
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