Best Pad Thai Recipe with Peanut Sauce (2024)

FAQs

Does Pad Thai always have peanut sauce? ›

It's tangy, sweet, and deeply savory all at the same time. While pad Thai in Thailand might differ in ingredients – some might have eggs, some might have dried shrimp, some might have peanuts, some might have tofu – the thing that stays consistent is the sauce.

Pad Thai Sauce is made with fish sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar and tamarind. Tamarind is the ingredient that is the heart and soul of Pad Thai sauce, giving the sauce the sour flavour that Pad Thai is known for. It's an ingredient used in South East Asian cooking, like this Malaysian Beef Rendang.

Carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, red peppers, and snow peas are just some of the vegetables that taste great when paired with Thai Peanut Sauce.

If it's only made of those ingredients, what then makes it so unique? A Pad Thai has tamarind, fish sauce, garlic, dried shrimp, palm sugar, and red chili pepper. These simple ingredients make Pad Thai a bowl of five tastes—salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami.

A Note about Pad Thai Sauce:

I also added a big scoop of peanut butter to my sauce, because I think it gives the whole dish an added creaminess and boost of flavor that I love.

Mix together peanut butter, coconut milk, water, lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce, hot sauce, ginger, and garlic in a medium serving bowl until well combined. Stir in cilantro just before serving.

Traditional Pad Thai usually combines tamarind paste, fish sauce, dried shrimp, and palm sugar, creating a sweet, sour, and salty taste balance. It commonly includes tofu, dried shrimp, bean sprouts, and peanuts. However, Americanized versions might swap tamarind for ketchup, making it sweeter and less complex.

In This Recipe

Our authentic Pad Thai Sauce contains real tamarind, the Asian fruit that gives Pad Thai its unique flavor.

Some noodle stalls in Thailand use a sweetened black soy sauce in combination with sugar, and ground dried chillies made with darkly roasted whole dried chillies, producing pad thai with a very different color and flavor balance than what Americans have become accustomed to.

It's popular in Indonesian and Thai cooking and is often added to meats or vegetables or served over noodles. Peanut sauce is also sometimes used as a salad dressing or a dipping sauce.

Where can I use Thai peanut sauce? ›

Peanut sauce is the classic dipping sauce for chicken satay (grilled chicken skewers) and makes a delicious dipping sauce for rice paper rolls, shrimp, potstickers, tempura and fresh vegetables including cucumber slices, carrot sticks and red pepper strips.

Four condiments are usually provided on the table: sugar, fish sauce, chili flakes, and sliced chilies in vinegar.

The flavors of this dish are centered around a sweet-savory fusion. Salty, nutty, and with that slightly sweet sauce, it's a treat for tastebuds! Of course, every Pad Thai can be different. Some use fish, some use chicken, and some use tofu.

The name of this establishment refers to the five flavors (ha/ห้า=five, roat/รส=flavors) which are present in a good pad Thai: salty, sweet, sour, spicy, and savory.

Pad Thai is a popular Thai dish that typically consists of stir-fried rice noodles, eggs, tofu or shrimp, bean sprouts, peanuts, lime, and various seasonings. The taste of Pad Thai is a harmonious combination of sweet, sour, salty, and sometimes spicy flavors.

Thai cooks commonly use coconut oil, palm oil, peanut oil, or soybean oil; traditionally, lard was also used in Thai cooking. These types of oil are low-smoke, as is desirable for frying or grilling, and they do not break down quickly. Peanut oil is often used for stir-frying and deep-frying.

In Thailand, Peanut Sauce is most often used a as a dip to accompany skewers of barbequed meat (satay), although it is sometimes served as a side dish in its own right as part of a larger meal.

Traditional pad thai is made with peanuts and peanut butter, however you can easily substitute nuts like cashews or almonds (peanuts are a legume, whereas almonds and cashews are tree nuts). My oil-free vegan pad thai is made nut-free with pumpkin seeds.

Satay and spicy peanut sauces have become mistakenly identified with Thai cuisine. They actually originated further down the Malay peninsula and in the Indonesian archipelago where they dominate the offerings in food bazaars and streetside stalls as well as in refined restaurants.