Thai Haystacks

 This originally came from a Thai Spring Roll recipe from my friend, but the spring rolls just fell apart, so I decided to make them like haystacks. For the 2021 Eden Reunion, I made 6 cups of rice, 2 cups of quinoa and had tons. I cooked 6 lbs. of chicken, quadrupled the chicken recipe, and did 2.5x the sauce recipe as written (we could have used a little more sauce). Update 2025: instead of rice you can also serve with rice noodles (hot or cold!). I've also added some more topping options from a similar Forks Over Knives recipe (Spring Roll Bowl - we ate it like a cold salad).

From the bottom:

Rice or quinoa* OR hot or cold cooked rice noodles

Chicken -

    Cook 1.5 lbs chicken pieces in a mixture of 3 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 t ground ginger, 1/4 c soy sauce, 1/2 t Sriracha sauce, 1 T ketchup, 1/3 c coconut milk, and the juice of 1-2 limes.**

Toppings (as many as you want) -

    Julienned cucumber, colorful bell peppers, shredded carrots, sliced radishes, cooked edamame, halved snow peas, green onions, lime slices, jalapeno

    Mung bean sprouts (sometimes these are hard to find fresh)

    Chopped cilantro

Peanut Sauce (for the top), heat all ingredients together in a sauce pan***

    1/2 c brown sugar (I'm sure you could sub with honey)

    1/2 c soy sauce

    1/2 c peanut butter

    2 t minced garlic

    1 t ground ginger

    1/2 t curry paste (test for spiciness and adjust as necessary)

    1 C coconut milk

 *The recipe says use mango rice. I didn't have the original mango rice recipe, so I just poured any extra coconut milk on the rice, optional. Plain rice is great, too. I'm sure you could use mango rice if you know how to make it.

**The original recipe also includes 12-oz Coke and 2 T brown sugar with the other ingredients boiled together and cooled and then used as a 4-hour+ marinade on the chicken. I rarely think ahead to do a marinade, so I just cook the chicken in the ingredients listed above in a skillet and love the flavor. For the 2021 Eden reunion, I did think ahead and did the marinade, and the flavor was very strong. I baked the chicken for over an hour in the sauce in the oven, then kept half the sauce with the cooked chicken and the chicken soaked up all the sauce! Also, I think if you plan to pan cook this, you could omit the coconut milk in the chicken-marinade recipe and just cook the chicken in the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, Sriracha sauce, ketchup, and lime juice.

***This is the recipe doubled. Cut it in half if you don't think you'll eat too much peanut sauce, but we always want more.

Healthier version of peanut sauce from "Jessica in the Kitchen"

Ingredients
1/3 cup natural peanut butter, if your peanut butter is thick, microwave is for about 15 seconds first
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, or 1/2 teaspoon freshly minced ginger
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
2 tablespoons to 1/4 cup hot water
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional

And another sauce recipe that was good from Forks Over Knives (Spring Roll Bowl recipe)

1/2 C peanut buter

1/4 C lime juice

1/4 C maple syrup

1/4 C snipped fresh cilantro

4 t fresh ginger 

4 cloves garlic

sea salt

black pepper

Heat all together in a saucepan.