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 
- ⅓ cup fish sauce
- ½ cup palm sugar
- ½ 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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Oh yum. I love Pad Thai. It seems like a trip to Ranch 99 is in order!
Why have I never considered making this at home? I always consider it an eat out dish. But why?? I need to break out of conventional thought! GREG
Great one to make at home. Thanks for the Ranch 99 tip! That’s good to know.
This looks amazing! I can’t wait to get a new wok so I can make this meal. My mouth is watering from just looking at the pictures.
looks just awesome! i love pad thai!
This looks fantastic! I have been looking for a good Pad Thai recipe for a while, and this just might be the winner!
love pad thai it look amazing, thanks for posting love your blog Rebecca
Ooo…i love pad thai. It’s a must when we decide to eat out at Thai restaurants. I’ve never tried the box stuff. I figured they’d put some weird ingredient in. Yours looks really great!!
I’m hosting the Blogger Secret Ingredient this week. I hope you’ll enter. =)
so much detail went into this post and recipe! Gotta love it.
I love Pad Thai! This homemade version looks delicious. Making it at home has got to be healthier and better for your wallet too.
This looks really yumm, one day when i have all the ingridients i am going to make them.
I’m just amazed. This looks so good. I can’t imagine being able to make this at home. I’d love to come hang out with you in your kitchen.
♥
Joy
Wow – you really outdid yourself on this one – amazing!
I love Pad Thai and your interpretation looks perfect, lots of crunchy peanuts!
I love Thai food so your recipe is welcome in my home anytime!
Eric
I looooove pad thai, but my home version never comes out as good as restaurant pad thai. Yours looks even better than restaurants!
your pad thai looks amazing!
Pad Thai is one of my favorite dishes, hard to believe coming from someone who usually makes Middle Eastern food. I have the same problem, whenever I try making thai dishes it just doesn’t compare to what I had in Thailand. On Koh Chang island I had pad thai made off a makeshift kitchen on a moped. He had everything stacked up on it- including chairs, tables, lanterns and of course all his pad thai cooking equipment. Perhaps coconut trees and sandy beaches also helped to make his pad thai the best I ever tasted:-). Your recipe looks delicious and authentic, way to go!
Hey Alice
Gorgeous blog – I am so going to try the pad thai!! Thanks for the sweet comment on my, er, secret baking exploits
Lisa
so its great that it looks super yummy….but have any of u tried this recipe b4 u posted…i see alot of “it looks great” or “i’ll have to try it” yet i come here looking for the “omg thanx for the recipe…it was delicious!!!” u know to maybe pump me up for trying it out….i’ll get back to ya…
This was spectacular! Pad Thai is one of my favorite foods, and this is one of the best I’ve had. Thanks so much for the recipe!!
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Jason: It is helpful when ppl try the recipe and come back and comment. I really love pad thai and I think this recipe is really good. I was glad to see a comment from Jessica who is the only person so far who has tried the recipe and commented back on the blog.
Jessica: Thanks for taking the time to make this and report back. I hope more people will try this recipe at home after seeing your review. And if you liked this recipe you will probably like the Peanut Satay one on the site. Just look under the Thai tab.
i just made this, and it was my first time making pad thai. it turned out great! i got the tamarind pulp brick and spent some time trying to figure out what to do with it. i think whatever i did must have been the right thing because this recipe is a keeper. i even found those funny little palm sugar drizzle pucks at a shop a few blocks away. thanks for posting the recipe and inspiring me to finally make a new dish i’d been wanting to make for ages!
Erin,
I’m so impressed you bought the tamarind brick. I’ve purchased them in the past and decided to use the concentrate for convenience. I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe. Thanks again for coming back and following up here. Maybe your comment as well as some others will give other people the confidence to make this at home.
Alice
I really appreciate you are posting this recipe. I am Cambodian and I love Pad Thai. I was looking for this recipe for a long long time! But now I have found it! Now I have found it on your website! Thanks for sharing this recipe with me and with others around the world.
We’re in Thailand at the moment, just took a Thai cooking class and this is really similar to how we made it! We used oyster sauce as well to round out the flavor. SO good!
We’re doing an around the world trip for a year, so I’ve been drooling over your food porn to remind me of home! I’m waiting for a chance to be close to an oven so I can make your Chocolate Banana Bread!!
Thank you SO much for posting this recipe! Seems I’m a bit late on the bandwagon as I just found your blog last week, but we just made the Pad Thai and it was FABULOUS! Couldn’t figure out where the heat should come from, so we added some cayenne (because I forgot there were Thai green chilies in the fridge) and it was great. A squeeze of the lime and a dash of soy sauce after plating added a nice brightness to the flavor. THIS WAS WONDERFUL – can’t wait to try more of your recipes. Thank you for doing what you are doing!
Interesting article… Thank you for the info!
im gonna try this recipe this weekend..i hope i do ok..
im making this now…is the sauce suppose to be thick? mine is pretty thick
Hi Souda,
Yes, the sauce is pretty quick but thins out when you stir fry it.
thank you alice, im gonna try again tonight.. my noodles looked more white than brown compared to ur picture perhaps not enough sauce? but it was still good! lol
I absolutely enjoy reading your articles, the variety of writing is fantastic.This post as usual was useful, I have had to bookmark your website and subscribe to your feed in ifeed. Your site looks spot on.
What a great blog. I spend days on the internet reading blogs, about tons of different subjects. I have to first of all give kudos to whoever created your website and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an unbelievable post. I honestly believe there is a skill to writing articles that only a few posses and frankly you have it. The combination of informative and quality content is definitely extremely rare with the large amount of blogs on the internet.
Made this last night and it was just fabulous!! A bit of chopping involved as I was making for 5 people, but well worth the effort. Will definitely be making again. The only question I have is whether there is a brand of fish sauce that is not so “smelly”. My family’s only complaint was the fish sauce smell but they got over that once they started eating..Thanks Alice for a great recipe!
Love your website!!!!!!!!!!!!
Calla: Thank for your thoughtful comment. Fish sauce stinks. There is no way around it. You can try using less but it does add a great flavor to food.
Your post is really yummy! I love Thai food as well! thanks for this information
Looks like a great recipe for pad thai but can I substitute the palm sugar for honey or brown sugar and still get the same affect?
Hi Shelly: You could substitute honey or brown sugar but I don’t know the conversion amounts. If you do substitute, it won’t have the subtle deep sweetness as honey or brown sugar would so make sure you decrease the sugar amount. Hope this helps.
I love this recipe because it is delicious and it isn’t so difficult to prepare so you can do it when you have guests at home because you don’t have to spend a lot of time.
Just made this recipe and it came out SO good. I did use brown sugar instead of palm sugar, but the sauce came out really good. I also didn’t have any tamarind concentrate, but I used some that was in a block and added water to make a sauce, strained the tamarind and continued making the sauce. This definitely fulfilled my craving for noodles.
Is there a difference between tamarind juice and tamarind juice concentrate? I could only find tamarind juice and the tamarind brick at the asian supermarket.
I’ve noticed some recipes call for rice wine vinegar in place of some of the tamarind paste, and specify peanut oil as the frying oil of choice. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks for your recipe and great pics! Will try this week.
This looks amazing! I went out to buy the ingredients today but I could only get was tamarind paste instead of the juice concentrate. Any idea what the equivalent of paste to juice concentrate might be? I might have to wing it tonight…
Worst case scenario I’ll just have to make pad thai again another time!
Sarah,
Paste should work but I don’t have the conversion. You might want to try google.
Alice
I made this tonight and i love it! A great recipe and will make it again for potlucks or parties.
Quite tasty – but I had one problem. When I added the noodles they clumped together in a great big ball. Any ideas on what I might have done wrong?
Your post inspired me to make pad thai too! Thanks for sharing!
http://cookieloveseating.blogspot.com/2011/02/authentic-pad-thai.html
Wow, I can’t wait to try this! My husband and I LOVE Thai food, but my only complaint is I can’t seem to get it to taste as good as it does in the restaurant! I’m now hopeful!
Wow. My family just got done feasting on this. It was my first time making my own Pad Thai sauce. I usually just buy a Pre-made bottled sauce. This recipe is easy and tastes awesome! I substitute brown sugar for palm sugar and I didn’t have tamarind juice. I did have tamarind candy on hand and thought I’d just try melting it down in hot water. Sure enough it worked! My husband doesn’t usually like Pad Thai even at restaurants, but he ate seconds and thirds of my dish!
Thank you!
I just found your blog and made this the other night – exactly as stated. SOOOO GOOD!!!! My husband was SO HAPPY because he loves Pad Thai and said this was the best he’s ever had!!
I was so proud of myself for making this because it’s a little out of my comfort zone, but it tasted FABULOUS and wasn’t that hard. And I had such a fun time visiting the Asian market for the first time! What’s even better is that I have everything to make this again (and like you said – there is extra sauce so I don’t have to make that over) tonight! YAY!! Thanks for a wonderful recipe! I can’t wait to try more.
i have been looking for a pad thai recipe that makes sense. your method of boiling the noodle solves a big problem. also , making the sauce and adding to taste later is more convenient. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
My search for Pad Thai ends here. Awesome recipe and ever more awesome picture. Bookmarked!
I love you so much for this recipe!!
My pad thai craving was not only over-satisfied, but reignited.
You are a genie!
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