Pad Thai

20 min
Pad Thai

Prawn Pad Thai is an incredibly tasty street food dish from Thailand made with rice noodles, bean sprouts, and scrambled eggs. It is quite easy to make at home and the flavours will take your mind straight to a white, sandy beach in Thailand. This prawn Pad Thai recipe has beautiful tiger prawns as the main ingredient but it is also flavoured with red chilli peppers, fresh coriander, peanuts, and spring onions. The main source of flavour is the fragrant Pad Thai sauce that you can easily make from scratch. Give our recipe a try next time you are in the mood for something quick, colourful, and scrumptious.

Other recipes
Peanut Sauce
Peanut Sauce
(1)
Chicken and prawn pad Thai
25 min
Chicken and prawn pad Thai
(0)
Thai Beef Curry
Thai Beef Curry
(0)
Thai Pork
Thai Pork
(0)
See more

Ingredients

Sauce:

Thai fish sauce
100 ml
Rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp
Freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tbsp
Liquid honey
1 tbsp
Big garlic cloves, finely crushed
2

Noodles:

Rice noodles
250 g

Wok:

Rapeseed oil
1 tbsp
Spring onions (approx. 200 g), cut into 2 cm slanted pieces
2 bundles
Boiled tiger prawns with tails
250 g
Eggs, beaten
2
Pointed cabbages, finely chopped
250 g
Bean sprouts
150 g
Red chilli peppers, cut into thin rings
2

Toppings:

Peanuts, coarsely chopped
75 g
Fresh coriander
1 bundle
Lime fruits, cut into wedges
2

Instructions

Sauce:

  • Mix all ingredients to make the sauce.

Noodles:

  • Cook the noodles according to the directions on the package and let them drip off in a sieve.
  • Rinse the noodles in cold water and, once again, let them drip off in a sieve – if you want to, you can leave the noodles in cold water up until just before you need them to lessen the risk of them sticking together.

Wok:

  • Let the oil heat up in a wok or sauté pan.
  • Cook spring onions for 30 seconds while you stir them.
  • Add prawns and continue cooking for about 1 minute.
  • Push spring onions and prawns off to the side and pour the beaten eggs into the wok. Let them set without disturbing them.
  • Add pointed cabbage, noodles, bean sprouts, chilli peppers, and sauce to the wok. Mix well until it has been heated through.
  • Garnish with peanuts, coriander leaves, and lime wedges and serve it immediately.
Enjoy!

Tips

A prawn Pad Thai, of course, needs perfectly cooked noodles. Soaking the rice noodles before cooking them removes excess starch which makes them less likely to stick together and form noodle lumps. Soak them in water for about 10 minutes. As you cook them in slightly salted water, stir them gently to ensure they cook evenly. Then rinse them immediately in cold water to stop them from cooking.

Questions about Pad Thai

With our traditional recipe for Pad Thai, making a flavourful meal bursting with Asian flavours is quick and easy. To learn more about it, continue reading below!

What is in Pad Thai noodles?

Pad Thai is perhaps one of the well-known dishes from Thai cuisine which is popular across the globe. The rice noodle dish is made with a special sauce and has scrambled eggs, spring onions, bean sprouts, and other vegetables like cabbage in it. The street food classic is quite versatile, and you can make it with tofu, vegetables, chicken, beef, shrimp, prawn, crab, and squid. We opted for a delicious prawn Pad Thai served with peanuts, lime wedges, and fresh herbs on top.

What is Pad Thai sauce?

The sauce used to give the dish its signature flavour is made with fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, honey, and crushed garlic. Though it may be bought as a pre-made sauce or paste, making it from scratch is well worth the effort. Also, it requires very little time on your part. The sauce is fragrant, rich, salty, and perfectly balanced as the honey adds sweetness while the freshly squeezed lime juice brings a wonderful acidity that brightens it.

How to make Pad Thai?

With an easy prawn Pad Thai recipe, you can enjoy a flavourful and tasty street food dish in the comfort of your own home. To make it, prepare the sauce, cook the noodles, and cool them in cold water to prevent them from sticking together. In a wok, sauté spring onions and prawns. Then cook the eggs before you add the rice noodles, pointed cabbage, bean sprouts, chilli peppers, and homemade sauce. Heat the dish through and garnish with chopped peanuts, fresh coriander leaves, and lime wedges for a wonderful meal with the right amount of spice and savouriness.

What to serve with Pad Thai?

Even though this prawn Pad Thai is great as it is, it is sometimes served with other Thai delicacies on the side. Favourite sides include green papaya salad with a hot and zesty dressing, beautifully fried fish, fish cakes with curry paste, rich tom yum soup, marinated ribs, beef satay skewers, lettuce wraps, or even delicious snack-like treats like steamed dumplings and rice paper rolls. As such, there is a wealth of lovely side dishes to choose from.

Can you freeze Pad Thai?

Yes! To freeze prawn Pad Thai, allow for it to cool properly before you transfer it to freezer-safe bags or airtight containers. To make enjoying your leftovers easy, portion them out and freeze them in separate containers. Make sure to portion the leftovers carefully so you do not end up with a serving of only noodles and no prawns. Remove any excess sauce to ensure fewer ice crystals and smoother consistency. Store the leftovers in the freezer for up to 3 months.

How to reheat Pad Thai?

You can either reheat prawn Pad Thai in a pan or wok on your stovetop or in the microwave. The best result will be achieved by reheating it gently at low heat on the stovetop, while the fastest will be the microwave option. If you do not plan to eat the leftovers within 3-4 days, you should consider freezing them. If you do, thaw it overnight in the fridge before you reheat it. Since the dish is frozen without too much of its signature sauce, you may need to prepare a bit more to add as you reheat it.

Is Pad Thai spicy?

Since our prawn Pad Thai recipe contains red chilli peppers and crushed garlic it is somewhat spicy. These fragrant and pungent ingredients add a lot of flavour to activate your tastebuds and make the dish's sweet-savoury fusion pronounced. The garlic adds a lot of depth. The spice level depends on the chillis you use. Try a small piece to assess whether adding more or less than the recommended two is best. Enjoy the dish with a beer or a glass of milk to mellow its spiciness.

Other recipes

See more

Authentic prawn Pad Thai noodles

A prawn or shrimp Pad Thai is bursting with spice and flavour. Though tender and buttery shrimp and prawns are often used interchangeably in recipes, prawns are a bit sweeter. Since they are larger, they are also a bit meatier and add more body to this popular rice noodle stir-fry.

The prawns' slightly salty but mild flavour pairs well with the spicy red chilli peppers, the crunchy vegetables, as well as the flavour-packed Pad Thai sauce. When slightly sweet and nutty-tasting rice noodles are added to the mix, you end up with a dish full of different tastes and textures.

Are you on the lookout for satisfying seafood dishes? Try our elegant, saffron-flavoured fish soup recipe or our restaurant-worthy recipe for scallops with cauliflower purée.

Make a classic homemade Pad Thai sauce

A classic prawn Pad Thai requires a tasty homemade sauce to tie it all together. Fish sauce is one of its main ingredients and this salty sauce has a complex flavour profile with briny undertones and a sweet quality that is almost caramel-like. In Thailand, it is often used to season dishes instead of salt and it is one of the most used sauces in the country’s cuisine.

In our quick Pad Thai sauce recipe, fish sauce forms the base of the flavour-packed sauce, and it is sweetened with raw honey and freshened with zesty lime. Mild rice wine vinegar too adds acidity and gives the sauce a subtle richness that is deepened and offset by the pungent crushed garlic. It is, as such, perfect for covering the mild rice noodles.

Savour the delicious Thai flavours

An authentic Pad Thai recipe must include a selection of delectable toppings. The best toppings include a combination of crispy and fresh ingredients to create a bit of textural contrast with the tender seafood and rice noodles.

This makes crunchy peanuts a great choice. Their nutty, salty flavour pair wonderfully with the dish as well as the fresh coriander. The herb, which is very popular in Thailand, introduces a wonderful floral quality and its citrussy notes are mirrored in the lime wedges. Their juice brightens the stir-fry and allows all the flavours of the spicy dish to shine.

Try making a Pad Thai with chicken

This traditional Thai dish is perfect for variations and is often seen in different versions across the world. For example, you can add chicken to create a surf and turf version, making it heavier on the umami flavour.

To make a homemade prawn Pad Thai with chicken, simply cook some chicken fillets for a few minutes, remove them from the pan and continue with the recipe. Add the cooked pieces of chicken again at the end to avoid overcooking them. This prawn Pad Thai with chicken combines the sweetness of prawns with the savoury flavour of chicken, while the other ingredients, such as noodles, bean sprouts, and peanuts, add additional flavour and texture.

If you enjoy Asian-inspired dishes with chicken, check out our recipe for stir-fry noodles and chicken noodle soup recipe for other great dishes to add to your repertoire.

https://www.arlafoods.co.uk/recipes/pad-thai/