When I think of Thai food I think of Pad Thai. Ever since discovering Joy’s Thai Food online 2 years ago, I’ve been making an adapted version of her recipe which I think has to be as good or almost as good as the local Thai restaurant we frequent. For 15 years I have had a love hate relationship with this popular Thai noodle dish. I loved eating it but hated preparing it. You see, I have this weird habit of trying to re-create dishes I love eating out at home. Most recipes I found used ketchup. So each attempt at making Pad Thai always resulted in ketchup tasting noodles. I even tried using boxed Pad Thai kits with not so good results. I wanted to be able to prepare Pad Thai as good as the local Thai restaurant down the street. This would be the only way I would ever be satisfied with preparing this dish at home. I am happy to report I’ve done it. It’s not quite as special as the Pad Thai at our favorite Thai restaurant but it’s as good or even better than most Thai places we’ve eaten at. This my friend, is a personal culinary achievement! And to think, I remember back in the day when I thought ketchup was the key ingredient in making Pad Thai. I’ve come a long way baby.
This recipe calls for tamarind concentrate 
| Pad Thai Recipe |
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- 1/3 cup fish sauce
- 1/2 cup palm sugar
- 1/2 cup tamarind juice concentrate
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 ounces dried rice stick noodles
- 6 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- cup red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 ½ cups thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or tofu
- 1 egg
- 1 cup carrots, match sticks
- cup green onion cut diagonal in ½ inch segments
- 1 cup mung bean sprouts
- cup cilantro
- cup toasted peanuts chopped
- Lime wedge
- To make pad thai sauce, heat a small pan on medium low and add fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind concentrate, and garlic. Cook sauce until palm sugar has completely dissolve. At this point, you will want to taste the sauce and tweek the sweetness or hotness (be careful, the sauce will be hot). To make it more spicy add a little Thai chili powder. Remove from heat and allow to cool 10 minutes before storing it in a jar or plastic container.
- Boil noodles for 4-5 minutes and drain immediately rinsing with cold water for a few seconds. Noodles should be slightly firmer than Al dente. But don’t worry, they will continue to soften and cook later when stir frying. Using kitchen shears, cut the noodle clump in half. This will make it easier to fry and eat.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok or frying pan on high and cook raw chicken, pork, beef, tofu or shrimp for 3-4 minutes. Remove meat/tofu/seafood into a small bowl. Next, heat the remaining oil and then add garlic and red onions to the hot pan and stir fry for 1 minute stirring the garlic mixture so it will not burn. Add noodles and stir for 1 minute. Add 3-4 tablespoons Pad Thai sauce continually stirring noodle mixture until well coated with sauce. Add cooked meat/tofu/seafood back and fry for 2-3 minutes. Move the noodle and meat mixture to one side of the pan and crack an egg on the other side. Scramble the egg with a wooden spoon and cook for 30 seconds. Add carrots, green onions, and sprouts and cook for one more minute frying everything together. Test the firmness of the noodle. If the noodle is too firm, fry for an additional minute. If your noodles need more flavor, add another tablespoon of sauce and fry another half minute. Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with remaining raw carrot match sticks, spouts, cilantro, toasted peanuts, and a wedge of lime. Enjoy!
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Hello,
Ran across your site when looking for a pad thai recipe. LOVE your site/blog!!! Cooked the pad thai yesterday and it went well, hubby likes it. I couldn’t find tamarind concentrate so I got a soup base and added water to get the 1/2 cup of tamarind “concentrate” and found palm sugar but did not know how to use it, as it was hard as a rock – so I substituted with brown sugar.
My pad thai didn’t have the color like your’s but it was itty bitty light orange. To give it some color i added just a tiny bit (very very tiny) of dark soy sauce… the color on your photo of course looks better, wonder if it’s the tamarind concentrate or palm sugar that gives it that brownish color on your pad thai. Nevertheless, love your recipe!
Thank you!
I learned a trick for handling palm sugar, grate it with a grater! I haven’t tried this recipe yet, but hope to soon!
i tried this recipe and it really tasted bad. i found this tamarind concentrate but it was so sour and exported from india. I am wondering if the brand of the tamarind and palm sugar make an effect?
On a note about the tamarind concentrate, you have to use the more watery concentrate. If you use the thick gel-like one, you have to dilute it first. And I used brown sugar, and it worked fine!
1/2 cup palm sugar? That can’t be correct. Should it be 1/2 tbsp? I’d love to try this recipe as I’ve also had trouble recreating the perfect pad thai at home. Also when measuring the palm sugar is it best to grate or chop or do you just keep it whole?
I’ve used recipes similar to this and have found it very tricky to get the balance of the sauce correct. To those of you who have had the same experience, if you add a tablespoon or two of corn syrup to the sauce while cooking, it will temper the sour taste of the tamarind.
Enjoy!
This recipe is so good! We have made it twice this week already. Even my husband, who barely ever cooks, makes this:) Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent recipe; I made it last night for the first time. A couple of tips/answers to comments:
- Don’t skip rinsing noodles after boiling; they will clump if you don’t
- Crush peanuts in a baggie; it’s easier to herd cats than to chop peanuts
- You need to use the full amount of sugar in the sauce, otherwise it won’t taste right. And, you’ll use ~< half of the sauce, keep the rest. So it won't really have 1/2 cup sugar in the meal. Use the remaining sauce in classic dishes like Thai Curry shrimp; works great!
- Added 3 minced thai chilis, and a bit of minced fresh basil to make it more restaurant style.
- Squeeze fresh lime and lightly toss, right before you take it out of the wok.
does tis recipe useba total of 8 cloves of garlic? also, what is pad thai sauce? pad thai sauce is not in the ingredients. i cant trust this recipe, if its not clear.
You use 4 garlic cloves for the sauce, and 4 more for the stir fry ingredients. Since you don’t use all of the sauce, you don’t use 8 cloves total. See my comment above yours.
The Pad Thai sauce is the first 4 ingredients, as described.
The prep time is pretty off; It took me >30 mins to make the sauce, boil noodles, chop/mince the ingredients (steps 1& 2). Step 3 takes ~ 15 mins. Make sure everything is prepped and ready to go before step 3, because you’re tossing in new ingredients every few minutes. It’s a little labor intensive, but it’s worth it since you pretty much make everything from scratch. It’s a really good recipe.
I’m so glad i found your site! I have been trying to find a good pad Thai noodle recipe for the longest time and am really excited to try it out this week, maybe on Friday for dinner. I will get back on and let you know how it went.
I have one question is that 1/2 cup of undiluted tamarind concentrate?
I purchased the Nuoc Me Chua (tamarind concentrate). It’s the Thai brand. I am confused because some recipes say to dilute it. Please help..
Thanks
Christina Kapetaneas
My husband and I love Thai food so we decided to give this recipe a try. We loved it so much that we now make it once a week and serve it to all our guests and it’s gotten nothing but great reviews! Thanks so much!
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