Thailand isn’t just about Pad Thai and coconut curries. From bustling street stalls to exquisite royal tables, the country offers a world of flavors that will surprise and delight you.
Join us as we explore the authentic dishes locals love, from spicy salads and savory stir-fries to sweet treats you won’t find anywhere else. Get ready to taste Thailand like never before.
If you are planning to visit Thailand, check our Thailand travel guide.
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Discover Thailand’s Most Irresistible Dishes
Stir-fry Thai Dishes
Pad Thai (Stir-fried noodles)
Pad Thai is the most famous Thai dish, or at least the most requested by foreigners. And it is well justified: a plate of rice noodles with a fantastic sauce, chicken or shrimp, fresh veggies, and topped with toasted peanuts…? What could go wrong?
It is simply a mouthful of good stuff. Not only is it delicious, but it is also very affordable and widely available. If you want to learn how to do a wicked Pad Thai, check out the recipe that we learned in a cooking class in Chiang Mai.
Kwaw Pad (Fried rice)
Although pleasant, Kwaw Pad isn’t one of our favorites… It’s steamed rice with chicken, pork or shrimp, and vegetables, all involved in a fragrant sauce and, in the end, topped with lime juice and chilies.
In southern Thailand, this Thai food dish is sometimes served inside a pineapple and has pieces of pineapple within the rice. It is pretty beautiful.
Pad Kra Pao (Hot Basil with Chicken)
Pad Kra Pao is one of the most popular Thai food dishes. You can find it in nearly every food stall, and it is incredibly cheap. Chicken, vegetables, and hot basil are served with sticky rice and usually topped with a fried egg. It’s like comfort food.
Thai Salads
Som Tam (Green Papaya salad)
This salad comprises shredded green papaya, tomato, long beans, and toasted peanuts, topped with lime juice and fish sauce. Note that this is no ordinary salad; it features green papaya, making it bitter rather than sweet. Moreover, it has a striking taste of hot and bitter that comes from the bitter green papaya and the soy sauce.
All in all, it’s an incredible salad that you will probably remember and crave for a long time. We know we do. 🙂
Laab Moo – Minced Pork Salad
This salad is more traditional in the north of Thailand. It’s made with ground pork, toasted rice, green onion, shallot, fish sauce, lime, and chilies. When we traveled to Laos, we found this salad very frequently, as it is also a Laos traditional dish.
Traditional Thai Soups
Tom Yum (Soup)
This is one of the most famous dishes and has been elected one of the best dishes in the world by CNN. It is a spicy, sour soup with prawns, mushrooms, galangal, kaffir lime, lemongrass, chilies, and onion. It’s a mouthful of flavor but a bit on the spicy side.
In Thailand, soup is served with large chunks of galangal, lemongrass, and other aromatic plants, which are used solely to add flavor and aroma. You don’t have to eat them. (Though it happens… 🙂 )
Tom Kha Gai (Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup)
Tom Kha Gai is a light but very fragrant soup. It is a mixture of coconut milk, lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime, tomato, onion, mushroom, and chicken. For once, it isn’t a very hot dish. Frequently, people add sticky rice to the soup.
Khao Soi (Chiang Mai noodle soup)
This soup or curry is typical in Chiang Mai. You can easily find it in food markets and restaurants. It is one of our favorites.
Khao Soi is composed of egg noodles, a piece of chicken leg, red curry paste, coconut milk, and pickled cabbage. Our favorite thing is that it is topped with fried egg noodles, giving it a crunchy side.
Curry Thai Dishes
Massaman Curry
The Islamic community influences this Thai curry in Thailand. It consists of coconut milk with massaman curry paste, boiled potatoes, chicken, or beef.
It is a delicious creamy curry served with sticky rice. However, it’s very hot. This Thai food dish is a must-try, even if it’s not the most famous one.
Green/Red Curry
Green curry is one of the most famous Thai dishes, though we prefer Massaman Curry. The green curry has eggplant, basil leaves, and green paste (made with small green chilies). The small green chilies, known as bird’s-eye chilies, are extremely hot. So be careful when you ask for this curry.
Red curry is very similar to green curry. The difference is that it uses red curry paste made of medium-dried red chilies. So it isn’t as hot as green curry.
Thai Desserts
Fruit and Fruit Shakes
Fruit in Thailand is excellent… Mango, pineapple, dragon fruit, and banana are delicious. Very sweet and tasty. There are fruit stalls on every corner selling sliced fruit. In most of them, they slice the fruit you choose. Most of the time, it is quite a show just watching them slice the fruit, particularly the pineapples. They meticulously cut every piece of fruit peel.
If the fruit is impressive, then the fruit Shakes are mind-blowing. You can find stalls selling fruit shakes nearly everywhere, especially in the islands and in Chiang Mai. There is an endless combination of fruits: banana with mango, pineapple, mango, coconut, and passion fruit… Or whatever you feel like trying! Typically, they are made of fresh fruit, ice, and palm sugar syrup. You haven’t really tried a fruit shake until you’ve been to Thailand.
Sticky rice with mango
This dessert is essentially a combination of sweet sticky rice, delicious sweet mango, and coconut milk syrup. It is the kind of food that makes you want to go to Thailand to eat it right now. Sticky rice comes in different variations, such as colored sticky rice with mango.
In Portugal, we have a dessert made of rice (Arroz Doce), so this recipe didn’t seem so weird to us. Although in Portugal, we don’t have sticky rice nor fantastic Thai mangoes, nor do we use coconut milk…
Banana in Coconut milk (Glauy Buad Chee)
Banana in Coconut milk is a simple yet surprisingly delicious dessert, made with hot coconut milk, banana, and sugar. It’s also something you can do anywhere and very quickly. We know we do it…
Roti Gluay
This is a caloric bomb, but it is so delicious that you’ll want to devour it. We have a bit of a sweet tooth, but we have a good excuse – we are Portuguese, and Portugal has a lot of incredible pastries.
The dessert is made from a dough called roti, a type of crepe that’s more elastic, filled with banana and chocolate, and topped with condensed milk. How can it go wrong? 🙂 Oh, and it’s cooked right in front of you and served hot…
Roti Sai Mai (candy strings in a roti)
We only found Roti Sai Mai in Ayutthaya, which is weird. This dessert is essentially candy strings in various colors, served within a colored pancake. The candy and the pancake come in different colors. It is sold in big plastic bags with several pancakes and candy.
Pan Gi (Coconut Pancakes)
Small pancakes made of coconut milk, flour, shredded coconut, and banana. We found these pancakes in a stall in Chatuchak Market in Bangkok. They were freshly made, we ate them hot, and it was super delicious.
Nam Kang Sai (mixed ice dessert)
The first time we saw this dessert, we thought, “What the hell is this?”.
Well, this is crushed ice bathed in coconut milk and sweet syrup with tapioca balls. Later, we found out that it’s a Southeast Asian thing 🙂 Now that you know about these, you can try them without hesitation…
Thailand’s cuisine is an adventure in every bite. From spicy street food to refined royal dishes, every meal tells a story. Don’t just stick to the usual — dive in, explore, and taste Thailand like a local. Your next unforgettable meal is waiting.
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