Gordon Ramsay’s green papaya salad is crunchy, spicy and loaded with Thai flavour. Shredded papaya, carrots, dried shrimp and toasted peanuts go in a tamarind and lime dressing with chillies, coriander and Thai basil. Serves 6 to 8 in about 30 minutes.
What holds it together is a pounded shrimp paste from Gordon’s Ultimate Cookery Course. In his YouTube video, he calls it “guaranteed not to go limp, a perfect party salad.” Every copycat recipe skips it.
You build it by grinding dried shrimp with garlic, chillies, sugar, tamarind and fish sauce in a pestle and mortar until the oils release and everything fuses. Skip the mortar and the whole thing falls flat.
Gordon Ramsay’s Green Papaya Salad
Course: SaladCuisine: ThaiDifficulty: Medium4
servings30
minutes40
minutes300
kcalA Thai party salad from Gordon’s Ultimate Cookery Course, built on a pounded shrimp paste with tamarind, fish sauce and lime. Costs roughly £1.50 per serving using ingredients from an Asian grocery shop.
Ingredients
- For the Shrimp Paste:
4-6 tbsp dried shrimp
Sea salt
2 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
2 red bird’s eye chillies, chopped
4 tbsp golden caster sugar
2 tbsp tamarind paste
4 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 2 limes
- For the Salad:
2 large green papayas, peeled and grated, core and seeds discarded
2 shallots, peeled and grated
2 carrots, peeled and grated
6 tbsp roughly chopped coriander
6 tbsp roughly chopped Thai basil (or normal basil)
6 tbsp roughly chopped skinned peanuts
Directions
- Grind the paste: Using a large pestle and mortar, grind the dried shrimp with a pinch of salt until broken into small pieces. Add the garlic, chillies, sugar, tamarind paste and fish sauce, then grind until it has a paste-like consistency. Stir in the lime juice to loosen.
- Prepare the salad: Mix the grated papaya, shallots, carrots, coriander and Thai basil together in a large bowl. Don’t hold back with the herbs because, as Ramsay says, they’re what make the salad fresh, bright and aromatic.
- Toast the peanuts: Roll the chopped peanuts around in a dry pan with a pinch of salt for 2 to 3 minutes until golden. Don’t chop them too small or they’ll burn before they toast.
- Dress and serve: Add 6 tablespoons of the shrimp paste to the salad and toss really well. Taste and add a little more paste if you want a stronger kick, then garnish with the toasted peanuts and serve.
FAQs
Where can I buy green papaya in the UK?
Tesco and Sainsbury’s don’t stock it, so you’ll need an Asian grocery shop like Wing Yip or Longdan. Veena’s also deliver green papaya across the UK if you’d rather order online. Expect to pay around £3 to £5 for one, and a single large fruit is enough for the whole recipe.
What can I use instead of green papaya?
Firm courgette with a squeeze of extra lime is the closest match because it has that same neutral crunch. Green mango works too, though it adds its own tartness. Swede holds up at first but develops a stronger flavour after a few hours, so eat it the same day.
Whichever you go with, grate rather than slice so the dressing clings properly. Ramsay also says normal basil works fine if you can’t find Thai basil.
Do I need a pestle and mortar for papaya salad?
It makes a real difference because pounding bruises garlic and chillies at a cellular level, releasing oils a food processor just shears past. If you don’t own one, put the paste ingredients in a sturdy freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin.
That said, if you cook Thai food regularly, a clay mortar with a wooden pestle is well worth the £15 to £20.
Can I leave out the dried shrimp?
You can, but the salad loses its savoury backbone. They add concentrated umami that balances the sour lime against the sweet sugar, so without them it just tastes sharp and one-note.
For a vegetarian version, try 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce with a pinch of seaweed flakes instead. Ramsay uses this same fish sauce and peanut base across his cookbooks, and the salad sits perfectly next to his sticky pork ribs from the same chapter or a bowl of Thai green curry.
How long does green papaya salad keep?
Dressed, it stays crisp for 3 to 4 hours at room temperature because the papaya is firm enough to hold its crunch far longer than leafy greens. Past that window it softens and loses its bite, so I wouldn’t keep it overnight.
The good news is the shrimp paste stores separately in the fridge for up to 4 days, which means you can get the hardest part out of the way early.
How is this different from authentic Thai som tam?
Traditional som tam pounds the papaya directly in the mortar to bruise it, and often includes long beans, cherry tomatoes and sometimes salted crab. Pailin Chongchitnant from Hot Thai Kitchen follows this method, which gives a rougher texture and more intense flavour.
Ramsay takes a different path by separating the paste from the salad and grating the papaya instead of shredding it. That makes it simpler, better for crowds, and easier in any Western kitchen. It goes well alongside his teriyaki salmon if you want a full Asian spread. For more options across all his books, see salads from all eight cookbooks.
