🥙 LUNCH
Lahpet Thoke
A tea-leaf salad of fermented tea, crunchy fried beans, nuts, and seeds tossed with cabbage and lime, Myanmar's national treasure.
Burmese · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 10 min
~373 cal · 19g protein · 43g carbs · 17g fat · 16g fiber · 11g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Lahpet thoke, tea leaf salad, is the most iconic dish of Myanmar and one of the very few in the world to use tea as food rather than drink. Deeply woven into Burmese culture, lahpet has long marked ceremonies, hospitality, and the settling of disputes.
The salad brings together pickled, tea leaves with an addictive array of textures: crunchy fried garlic, fried yellow split peas and other beans, toasted sesame, peanuts, and dried shrimp, all tossed with shredded cabbage, tomato, chili, and a good squeeze of lime and . The result is savoury, sour, bitter, crunchy, and utterly unlike anything else, at once a salad, a snack, and a pick-me-up.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
- 1/2 cup (pickled) tea leaves
- 3 cups cabbage, shredded
- 2 tomato, sliced
- 3/4 cup fried yellow split peas and broad beans
- 1/2 cup roasted peanuts and sesame
- 3 tbsp fried garlic
- 2 tbsp peanut oil
- 2 tbsp
- 1 lime
Instructions
- 1Rinse the fermented tea leaves if very strong, then dress with a little oil.
- 2Pile the tea leaves in the centre of a plate and arrange the cabbage, tomato, fried beans, nuts, and garlic in sections around them.✎ Chef’s noteKeep the components separate until serving, then toss at the table. It keeps the fried beans and nuts crunchy against the soft tea leaves.
- 3Add the fish sauce and a good squeeze of lime.
- 4Toss everything together well just before eating, working it with your hands rather than a spoon.✎ Chef’s noteLahpet thoke is mixed by hand at the stalls in Yangon; the vendors say the flavours never blend properly if you stir it with a spoon.
Burmese national dish.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Yangon. Mohinga is not one soup. The Yangon version builds its broth on catfish with chickpeas and peanuts, and the body comes from toasted rice flour or gram flour rather than anything creamy. There are a dozen regional versions using different thickeners and different fish.
🗺️
Myanmar. Mohinga is breakfast, sold from carts before dawn: a broth built on catfish and the pith of a banana stem, thickened with toasted rice or chickpea flour, poured over rice noodles and finished with crisp fritters, boiled egg and lime. Underneath most Burmese cooking is ngapi, fermented fish or shrimp paste, which supplies the salt and the depth.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Myanmar
MohingaMyanmar’s national breakfast: rice noodles in a lemongrass-catfish broth thickened with toasted chickpea flour.
Burmese Chicken CurryChicken slow-cooked in an oil-rich onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric masala until deeply savory.
Sanwin MakinA dense semolina and coconut cake topped with poppy seeds, a much-loved Burmese teatime sweet.
Browse all Myanmar recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Best assembled just before serving. Prep the components ahead and dress at the last moment so it stays crisp.
Make it a Myanmar meal
Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat)Drink
Sanwin MakinDessert
Burmese Chicken CurryDinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Lahpet Thoke?
A tea-leaf salad of fermented tea, crunchy fried beans, nuts, and seeds tossed with cabbage and lime, Myanmar's national treasure.
Where does Lahpet Thoke come from?
Lahpet Thoke is a Burmese dish from Yangon, Myanmar.
Can Lahpet Thoke be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Lahpet Thoke recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Lahpet Thoke safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Lahpet Thoke take to make?
About 30 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 10 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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