What the heck are winged beans? Glad you asked. They are Thai superhero green beans tossed in this lovely, coconutty, creamy Thai salad that is dairy-free too.

Serve this creamy salad alongside Thai basil chicken, curry mussels, or easy baked sriracha salmon.

What are winged beans?

Winged beans are an Asian pea plant with roots and leaves that are entirely edible.

They look kind of like a crunchy, waxy, green bean that spread wings. The Thai superhero of green beans!

If you can find them, they are delicate and need to be eaten soon after buying, else their wings start turning black.

Traditional Thai salad

Winged beans are commonly found in Thai dishes chopped into thin slices for a salad.

It is usually seasoned with:

ground pork
poached shrimp
hardboiled eggs
fried shallots
fried garlic
coconut milk
tamarind
fish sauce
lime juice
palm sugar

Simplified Thai Winged Bean Salad

For simplicity, this recipe just uses the hardboiled egg, and skips the addition of pork and shrimp.

This recipe also eliminates the tedious chopping by slicing the beans lengthwise.

How to make Thai Winged Bean Salad

Step 1: Hardboil eggs

I hardboil eggs by putting eggs in a pot of cold water.

Bring to a boil and simmer for 8 minutes.
Turn off heat
Cover the pot with a lid and let sit for 8 minutes.
Remove eggs into an ice bath or cold water.
Peel and rough chop into a small dice.
Reserve some of the chopped egg to garnish on top.

Step 2: Prep winged beans

After slicing the winged beans, into a pot of boiling water they go.

Cook for about 1-2 minutes until the pot returns to a boil.

Drain and run under cold water or shock in an ice bath to cool.

Step 3: Make coco-nutty dressing

This dressing often has tamarind in it. For the sake of simplification, it is eliminated in this recipe.

Whisk the following items together:

coconut cream
fish sauce
chili garlic sauce
fresh lime juice
shallot
sugar

To make this vegetarian, you can substitute the fish sauce with soy sauce.

Step 4: Toss and serve

Toss the blanched winged beans and chopped hard-boiled egg with the coconut dressing.

Garnish with the reserved chopped egg on top.

Try out this coco-nutty, zippy, zingy Thai dressing for an unusual side salad.

Other Coconut Cream Recipes

As we know, once you’ve opened that can of coconut cream, it must be used fairly quickly, probably within a week.

You can also use coconut cream for Thai black rice pudding or as a topping for your cold brew coffee.

Tips to make it better @home

If you can’t find winged beans, regular green beans work well too.
To make this vegetarian, substitute fish sauce with 1/2 Tb soy sauce and additional salt to taste. Also, leave the egg garnish for the top, so the soy sauce doesn’t make it brown.
Other items you could add are poached shrimp, cooked ground pork, fried shallots, grapefruit segments, or fried garlic chips.
To make ahead of time, complete all steps but mix the dressing with the beans when ready to serve.
Keep in the fridge to snack on for up to 3 days.

Other Easy Salad Recipes

Smashed Cucumbers – Angry & Vegan

Quickest, Coolest Japanese Tofu Salad

Thai Pomelo Salad

thai wing bean and egg salad on blue plate 2

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5 from 1 vote