Larb (ลาบ)

Larb (pronounced /laab/ — the “r” is silent) is a type of meat “salad” popular in Laos and Thailand that is made by combining ground or chopped meat with fish sauce, lime juice, toasted rice powder and herbs. Most Thai restaurants in North America have a variation of larb on their menu, typically made using ground pork, ground chicken or duck. My favorite take on larb is at Lers Ros in San Francisco, where they offer a variation made with BBQ duck that’s unbelievable.

But guess what? You can also make vegetarian larb by substituting Impossible Beef, Beyond Beef or another plant-based alternative (note that if you want to make it fully vegetarian/vegan, you need to substitute the fish sauce for a vegan alternative).

The traditional form of larb is both easy and fast to make, so it’s perfect for a busy schedule. The entire preparation is effectively “chop up a bunch of ingredients, brown the meat, and then mix it all together.”

Larb (ลาบ)

• Serves: 3 - 4 as a main course / 5 - 6 as a side dish

• Preparation time: 10 minutes

• Cooking time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground pork (or ground chicken, or Impossible Beef, or…) (see Notes below)

• 1 medium shallot, thinly sliced

• 1 tbsp lime leaves, thinly sliced (approximately 5 leaves) (see Notes below)

• 5 sprigs cilantro, chopped

• 1 green onion, thinly sliced

• 1 tbsp toasted rice powder (see Notes below)

• 1½ tbsp fish sauce (substitute a vegan “fish sauce” if making vegetarian/vegan larb)

• 1 lime

• 2 tbsp water

• Chili flakes, to taste (I like two giant spoonfuls)

Preparation

Start by prepping all of your ingredients. When slicing the shallot and lime leaves, your goal is to make them as thin as possible (~1mm). These ingredients will all be served raw in the salad, so if the pieces are too large, the texture will be off-putting when eating it.

For the lime leaf, the easiest way to slice it is to roll up one or two leaves in the direction of the stem and then cut inwards from each side:

Once you’ve got all of your ingredients ready, it’s time to brown the ground pork (or ground chicken, or Impossible Beef, or…)

Cooking

Heat a medium sauté pan on the stove over medium-high heat. Cook the ground pork, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon so that it doesn’t scorch. Cook until the ground pork is thoroughly browned. Add the water, stir for 10 more seconds and remove the sauté pan from the heat.

Add the shallots, lime leaves, cilantro, green onions, and toasted rice powder to the meat. Juice the lime into the mixture, add the fish sauce and mix it all together.

At this point, you need to let your tastebuds guide you.

The flavor of the larb should be a perfect mixture of salty (from the fish sauce), sour (from the lime juice) and spicy (from the chili flakes), with a bit of citrusy sweetness from the lime leaves. Feel free to add a bit more of any (or all) of these ingredients to get your perfect flavoring — just don’t overthink it!

(You can also make different combinations: when I make larb for my family, I split it into two portions: one without chili flakes for the kids and one with a healthy dose of spice for the adults.)

Serving

Larb is traditionally served with steamed jasmine rice and leafy green lettuce. It can be eaten as a lettuce wrap or plated like a traditional salad (with the lettuce broken into smaller pieces).

Notes

On ground pork:

If you want your larb to have the best flavor, do not under any circumstances buy “lean ground pork” at the grocery store. While it may sound like a healthier alternative, it has so little fat content that the meat will not absorb the flavors of the dish and you’ll end up with something more akin to rubber pellets covered in herbs. Just don’t do it.

Go to a local butcher shop and get good, high quality, free-of-crazy-antibiotics ground pork. You’ll thank me later.

On lime leaves:

You can find lime leaves at almost any Asian grocery store, as well as many chains. If you can’t find lime leaves, you can substitute mint leaves, but you will lose the unique citrus flavor that comes from this ingredient.

On toasted rice powder:

Toasted rice powder acts as a thickening agent for the sauce, while also adding a depth of flavor to the dish. While it’s possible to make larb without rice powder, it doesn’t taste nearly as good, so I recommend you make some (thankfully, it’s easy to do).

To make toasted rice powder, place a couple of handfuls of jasmine rice directly in a small sauté pan over medium-low heat (no oil or anything else…just the rice). Stir or shuffle the rice every 20 seconds or so and allow it to brown until it approaches the color of coffee. This will take about 20 minutes, so put on an audiobook or listen to some music while making sure your rice doesn’t burn.

Once the rice has browned, grind it into a powder using a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. Store the toasted rice powder in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

Before

After