Easy Pad Thai Sauce Recipe - how to make in 10 minutes (2024)

FAQs

What is Pad Thai sauce made of? ›

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.

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.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons cold water until smooth to make a slurry (see note). Whisk the slurry into the tamarind sauce and reduce the heat to low. Simmer, whisking continuously, for 2 minutes. As the cornstarch cooks, it will thicken up the sauce.

When it's sold in restaurants outside Thailand, the noodles are sometimes bright orange – that's because sauces or spices, like paprika, have been used instead of tamarind. Authentic Pad Thai is a light reddish-brown colour.

Prik nam pla is a sauce that Thai people use as the all-purpose flavour enhancer. It is a tableside condiment you put on the finished dish, much like salt and pepper in the West, but it's not something you cook with. Prik nam pla is salty, spicy, umami and acidic.

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.

And here are the ingredients that you will need to make the delicious pad Thai sauce: Tamarind concentrate: This is the starring ingredient in pad Thai that gives the sauce its signature tangy, sweet, and fruity flavor.

Pad thai is a nutrient-dense dish offering many nutrients and health benefits, primarily from: Flat rice noodles: They are rich in carbs, which serve as an energy source to fuel our bodies, and selenium, an essential mineral that supports the immune system.

Cooking rice noodles is not actually hard, but most people misunderstand how they need to be treated. The #1 reason why your rice noodle stir fries are a soggy mess is that you're cooking them before cooking them.

Why is my Pad Thai mushy? ›

Rice noodles don't need to be boiled, just soaked

Did you know that rice noodles don't need to be boiled in water, but rather soaked in hot water until rehydrated? If boiled, the noodles will overcook, turn mushy, and are likely to break apart, according to Kitchen Skip.

Pad Thai, a popular traditional rice noodle dish is very mild, pleasant and kid-friendly and can be a great starting point into Thai flavors. The more traditional Pad Thai is made with tamarind, but this recipe uses ketchup which is much easier to find. The taste is very similar.

Some authentic versions add shrimp paste which can give the dish a deeper red tint. Be on the lookout for Pad Thai recipes that include ketchup or paprika – these will also give the dish a reddish color but will not give you the traditional flavor you want.

The vinegar-sugar mix works well in dishes like pad thai chicken. If your recipe calls for 1 tablespoon tamarind paste, substitute with 1 tablespoon vinegar mixed with 1 tablespoon brown sugar. If using fresh lime juice, substitute 2 tablespoons lime juice for every 1 tablespoon tamarind paste.

The dish is mixed with a tamarind sauce and served with lime. 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.

Pad thai is made with rice noodles, which are stir fried with eggs and chopped firm tofu, flavored with tamarind juice, fish sauce, dried shrimp, garlic, shallots, and sometimes red chili pepper and palm sugar, and served with lime wedges and often crushed roasted peanuts.

What does pad Thai taste like? The tamarind paste and lime give a touch of sourish as sugar sweetness; then there's the unmistakable savoriness of salty fish sauce lashing on to a bunch of ingredients such as shrimps, firm tofu, egg. To spice it up, ground dried chili pepper, minced garlic, ground pepper are added.

It is usually a mixture of fish sauce (condiment made of fish), oyster sauce (made from oyster extract), brown sugar and tamarind (tree seed), but can also include shrimp, garlic, shallots or red chili pepper. Some establishments or chefs may use soy sauce, which is traditionally made by fermenting soybeans and wheat.