Recipe: Yum Kai Tom (Thai Hard Boiled Egg Salad)

Chow and I wanted to write a cookbook devoted entirely to Thai salads. Not a Thai cookbook with a few salads tucked in around the edges, but a whole book about them. Our publisher ultimately decided to roll that idea into something much bigger, Thai Food Stories, forthcoming from Tuttle Press in June 2027.

We were going to call the book Thai Salads: Yum, Tum, Larb & Beyond.

This egg dish comes from the yum section. So what exactly is yum?

Yum (ยำ) is one of Thailand’s great salad traditions. Unlike a salad defined by a particular ingredient, yum is defined largely by its dressing: the classic combination of sour, salty, spicy and sweet flavors, usually built from lime juice, fish sauce, chilies and a little sugar.

The ingredients can change completely from one yum to another. There are yum made with meat, seafood, noodles, vegetables, fruit, herbs and eggs. In this case, we’ve used eggs.

I am slightly obsessive about eggs. I eat one or two almost every day. The combination of rich, creamy egg with lime, chilies, fish sauce and herbs is yum, no pun intended.

Yum Kai Tom | Hard Boiled Egg Salad

You’ll find this salad as a common side dish at any “khao tom” (rice porridge) shop, worth its runny, rice-y sludge (it’s better than it sounds). Luckily, it is also super easy to make!

Serves 3-4

Cook time: 20 minutes, prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

4 eggs, lightly hard-boiled and quartered
2 small shallots, thinly sliced or ⅛ cup sliced red onion
Handful of cilantro (coriander) leaves
Additional lettuce (optional)
For the dressing
1 lime, juiced (2 Tablespoons)
2 Tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons palm sugar or white sugar
2-3 red bird's-eye chiles sliced finely
2 small shallots thinly sliced or ⅛ cup sliced red onion

Cook the eggs in gently boiling water until lightly hard-boiled, approximately 7 minutes

In a mortar, add lime juice, fish sauce, and sugar. Add chilies and red onion and mix. Make sure that the sugar is fully dissolved.

Add peeled eggs to a serving dish, adding lettuce greens below if you wish. Drizzle all the salad dressing over the eggs and garnish with cilantro leaves.