If you love Thai food, especially authentic Pad Thai, you need this Pad Thai sauce recipe in your life! Made with tamarind paste, palm sugar, fish sauce, and garlic, learning how to make Pad Thai sauce is simple with this homemade, easy Pad Thai sauce recipe.
Did you know Pad Thai is one of the world’s most popular foods? A global phenomenon, Pad Thai is comforting street-food made of rice noodles stir-fried in a sour, sweet, savory Pad Thai sauce. It also happens to be one of the most ordered take-out dishes in America.
In less time than having to order Thai food and having it delivered, you could easily make this dish at home and it be as good if not better than your local Thai restaurant. I’m serious.
To make authentic Pad Thai, you have to understand what this dish essentially is. Pad Thai is a noodle stir-fry. And with most types of stir-fry, each dish is uniquely seasoned depending on the sauce. With so many variations of Pad Thai sauces on the internet, the most authentic Pad Thai sauce recipe has tamarind, palm, sugar, and fish sauce – sometimes pickled radish.
Some Pad Thai sauces call for none of these ingredients, which would make it not authentic. If you go through all the trouble to make homemade Pad Thai, shouldn’t your hard work go towards enjoying authentic version? If you see a Pad Thai sauce recipe calling for ketchup, DO NOT MAKE. I beg you. You can call it a noodle stir-fry but you won’t in good conscious be able to call it Pad Thai.
I’m going to walk you through how to make the most amazing restaurant quality Pad Thai by teaching you how to make Pad Thai Sauce – remember, every stir-fry dish depends on how it’s seasoned. Best of all, this sauce is easy. Like, 4-ingredients to heavenly Pad Thai sauce easy. Seriously, if you love Pad Thai, there is no good reason not to make homemade Pad Thai sauce. This recipe is so easy, you’ll be so happy to make this dish at home.
Imagine, you, glass of wine, Netflix, and homemade Pad Thai that you made. That is my definition of the perfect night.
Here is everything you need to know about making a kick-ass Pad Thai sauce
List of ingredients you need to make Pad Thai sauce:
- Tamarind Concentrate diluted with some water
- Palm Sugar
- Fish Sauce
- Fresh Cloves
The Pad Thai sauce flavor is a balance of the recipe ingredients of sour, sweet, and salty – umami.
Tamarind is acidic pulp from inside a tree pod (from the pea family) and is a common ingredient in Asian cooking. It adds a pleasant sour flavor to dishes and beverages.
Palm Sugar is derived from the sap of various types of palm trees including sugar and coconut. The sap is collected and boiled until all that’s left is a sticky sugar solid and is often spun into disks. The flavor of palm sugar is very different than refined white and brown sugar. It is noticeably less sweet, deeper and richer in flavor, and is naturally brown in color.
Fish Sauce is an intensely flavored sauce made from anchovies, salt and water which has gone through a fermenting process. Its strong, salty, fishy smell adds a layer of umami flavor that enhances Thai food. Without it, Thai dishes are not the same, including Pad Thai.
Garlic – Fresh garlic in combination with the other ingredients ties the sour, sweet, salty sauce ingredients together in a way only garlic can and does so well.
How to make the Pad Thai:
To make Pad Thai sauce, you cook all the ingredients in a pan until the sugar is dissolved. Once your sauce is ready, you can use it to make Pad Thai by stir-frying rice noodles and fresh ingredients such as tofu, chicken, shrimp, egg, and vegetables.
The Pad Thai sauce is added in slowly added in a little bit at a time to give the noodles a chance to absorb the flavor. You should always add the sauce in small amounts until you reach the flavor you’re looking for. To finish off the dish, roasted chopped peanuts are added to the top.
Over ten years ago before food blogs were a real thing, I discovered a mother-daughter duo who posted their Thai food family recipes on a site called Joys Thai Food. The site appears to be offline now you can find her authentic Thai Food recipes still on Youtube. Inspired by their authentic Pad Thai sauce recipe, I made an adapted version rivaling the best restaurant versions I had grown to love and were accustomed to.
The easiest and best way to make pad Thai is to make the sauce in advance and use as little or much as you need. The recipe makes just over a half a cup of sauce. You can refrigerate it up to a month.
If you do refrigerate the sauce and find it hardened, just microwave it for 30 seconds to soften it up. It will be perfectly warm and usable.
I hope you enjoy making this Pad Thai Sauce recipe – it is the gift that will keep on giving, satisfying all your Thai food cravings!
Other Thai Food Recipes You Might Enjoy:
Chicken Coconut Curry Soup
Acorn Squash Coconut Curry Soup
Chicken Satay and Peanut Sauce
- Pad Thai Sauce
- 3 tablespoons tamarind juice (paste) concentrate
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup palm sugar
- 2 Tbl fish sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Pad Thai Stir-Fry Ingredients
- 8 ounces dried rice stick noodles
- 5 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- ½ smallish-medium red onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ lb protein (thinly sliced chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, or cubed tofu)
- 1 egg
- 1½ cups mung bean sprouts, divided in half
- 1 cup carrots, julienned (match sticks), divided in half
- 4 green onions (scallions) cut diagonal in ½ inch segments
- ¼ cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
- ½ cup toasted peanuts, chopped
- Lime wedges
- To make pad Thai sauce, heat a small pan on medium low and add the tamarind concentrate, water, palm sugar, fish sauce, and garlic. Cook the sauce until the palm sugar has completely dissolved. At this point, you will want to carefully taste the sauce and tweak the sweetness or tangyness by adding a tiny bit more palm sugar or tamarind. Be careful, the sauce will be hot.
- Remove from heat and allow to cool 10 minutes before storing it in a jar or plastic container.
- Boil the rice noodles on high heat for 2 minutes then drain immediately, rinsing the noodles with cold water for just a few seconds. Noodles should be slightly firmer than al dente. 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 a lot easier to stir-fry and eat.
- In a wok of large frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of oil on high heat. Add to the pan the protein and cook for 2 minutes. Remove the protein and transfer to a plate or bowl.
- Return the pan to heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Allow the oil to heat up and add the onions and stir-fry (stir + fry) for one minute then add the garlic and cook for another minute, making sure to stir often enough so the garlic does not burn.
- Add the noodles to the pan and drizzle with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Stir fry the noodles for two minutes. This will help the noodles soften a tiny bit more but more importantly will provide enough surface texture for the sauce to adhere to.
- Add 3-4 tablespoons of the pad Thai sauce continually stirring the noodles until they are coasted with sauce - about a minute.
- Add the protein back in and fry for an additional 2-3 minutes, adding more sauce if necessary. You don't want to noodles to be "wet." Instead you want to add a little bit at a time allowing the noodles and the other ingredients to soak in the sauce.
- Move the pad Thai over to one side of the pan. Add the last tablespoon of oil to the bare side then crack an egg over it. Scramble the egg with a wooden spoon and cook for 30 seconds.
- Add half the sprouts and half the carrots along with the scallions. Mix and stir-fry everything for 1 more minute, frying everything together.
- Test the firmness of the noodle. If the noodle is too firm, continue to stir-fry for an additional minute adding a spoonful of sauce if necessary.
- Remove pad Thai from heat and serve and garnish with remaining julienned carrots, spouts, cilantro, toasted peanuts, and a wedge of lime. Enjoy!
Updated May 3, 2018
Jan says
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.
alice says
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
erin says
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!
Alice says
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.
Jessica says
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!!
Jason says
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…
Lisa says
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
Sarah says
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!
FOOD IS LUV says
your pad thai looks amazing!
gaga says
I looooove pad thai, but my home version never comes out as good as restaurant pad thai. Yours looks even better than restaurants!
Eric says
I love Thai food so your recipe is welcome in my home anytime!
Eric
Danica says
Wow – you really outdid yourself on this one – amazing!
Joan Nova says
I love Pad Thai and your interpretation looks perfect, lots of crunchy peanuts!
joy in the Burbs says
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
Happy Cook says
This looks really yumm, one day when i have all the ingridients i am going to make them.
Nutmeg Nanny says
I love Pad Thai! This homemade version looks delicious. Making it at home has got to be healthier and better for your wallet too.
oneshotbeyond says
so much detail went into this post and recipe! Gotta love it.
Jen @ My Kitchen Addiction says
This looks fantastic! I have been looking for a good Pad Thai recipe for a while, and this just might be the winner!
SuperChef says
looks just awesome! i love pad thai!
jenn says
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. =)
rebecca subbiah says
love pad thai it look amazing, thanks for posting love your blog Rebecca
The Duo Dishes says
Great one to make at home. Thanks for the Ranch 99 tip! That’s good to know.
Kamran Siddiqi (The Sophisticated Gourmet) says
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.
greg says
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
Kate says
Oh yum. I love Pad Thai. It seems like a trip to Ranch 99 is in order!