Easy Pad Thai is a great recipe to serve with flat rice noodles, in a perfectly balanced Pad Thai sauce mixture, with tender chicken, carrots, and eggs, all made on the stovetop.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe:
If you love going to a Thai restaurant and getting pad thai, you are going to love this delicious homemade stir fry made with local grocery store ingredients.
- Pantry ingredients: Use pantry staples you already have at home.
- Made quickly: This is the best recipe, great for busy weeknights, and you can have it made in 20 minutes or less.
- Protein optional: If you want to make this vegetarian, you can! You can also swap the chicken for other protein options like steak or shrimp.
Is This an Authentic Pad Thai Recipe?
This recipe has all the flavors of authentic pad thai, with the balance of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors balanced with traditional ingredients that can be found in your pantry.
However, most authentic pad thai recipes normally use a fish sauce, oyster sauce, tamarind paste, or palm sugar in the Thai food; this recipe will still give you the best pad thai cuisine without needing to grab extra ingredients.
Key Ingredients:
To make the best sauce, you will need low-sodium soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, creamy peanut butter, and sriracha to bump up the spice.
Use flat brown rice pad thai noodles or rice noodles as the carb for this
Use a neutral cooling oil like avocado oil or vegetable oil for the best results.
Add more flavor with garlic cloves, salt, green onions, and lime juice or lime wedges.
For the best resuslts use chicken breasts that have been cut into thin stripes or small bite-sized pieces or ground chicken and beaten eggs for the protein source of this dish. You can keep the veggies simple in this dish by using julienne carrots, which add a delicious crunch too!
Top the easy pad thai recipe with crushed roasted peanuts.
See below for a detailed list of ingredients!
Equipment Needed:
- Mixing Bowl
- Whisk
- Colander
- Large skillet or wok
How to make Easy Pad Thai:
- Whisk all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set it aside until you aare read to combine it with the noodles.
- Cook the rice noodles in hot water according to package directions. Once they are tender, drain the rice noodles and toss them with 1 Tablespoon of oil to keep the noodles from sticking together, and then set the noodles aside.
- Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet and season the chicken with salt. When the oil is hot, cook the diced chicken in the skillet until it is no longer pink and cooked through.
- Add the garlic and carrots to the skillet with the chicken and cook everything for 1 minute.
- Push all the ingredients to one side of the skillet, adding a little bit more oil, and add the beaten eggs. Carefully scramble the eggs on the side of the pan until they are cooked through and true scrambled eggs.
- Now, add cooked rice noodles and the sauce mixture to the skillet and stir everything together well to combine.
Tips and Recipe Notes
- Add more veggies like red bell peppers or snow peas.
- Only use creamy peanut butter because it gives the perfect balance for the taste and texture of traditional pad thai. Using crunchy peanut butter will give you different results.
- Instead of brown sugar, coconut sugar is a great option.
- You can add mung bean sprouts as a great flavor and texture addition.
- Avoid using peanut oil in this recipe, as it will add a bit too much flavor to the chicken when cooking. A neutral oil is best.
Storage and Reheating Instructions
Storage: Place any leftovers of the Pad Thai in an airtight container and store it in the fridge for the next day, and it will keep for up to 5 days.
Reheat: Microwave in 30-second intervals and then top with the crushed peanuts and lime wedge.
FAQ’s for Pad Thai
The noodles were overcooked or not placed in hot water to cook, but rather in cold water. Make sure to follow the directions on the packaging to get the best al dente noodles.
It is important not to overcook the noodles since they will be added back to heat in the skillet.
By nature, this recipe has a little spice from the sriracha sauce; however, that could be omitted. You can also bump up the heat by adding some red pepper flakes to the sauce as well.
Asian Recipes to Serve:
Bang Bang Shrimp or Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp are delicious appetizers to serve with any Asian dishes!
Slow Cooker Asian Glazed Chicken Recipe or Best Pork Chop Marinade also have amazing sweet and spicy flavor.
Easy Pad Thai Recipe
Ingredients
For the sauce:
- 4 Tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
- 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter
- ½ Tablespoon sriracha or to taste
For the pad Thai:
- 8 oz. flat rice noodles or desired rice noodles
- 2 Tablespoons neutral oil, like avocado or vegetable
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 oz. chicken breasts, cut into thin stripes or small bite-sized pieces
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- Salt, to taste
- 1 large carrot, cut into long shreds with a julienne vegetable peeler
- 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup crushed roasted peanuts
- Lime wedges to serve with
Instructions
Prepare the sauce
- Make the sauce; whisk all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. Set aside,
Prepare the rice noodles:
- Prepare the rice noodles; cook the rice noodles according to package directions. Drain the rice noodles and toss them with 1 tablespoon of oil. Set the noodles aside.
Prepare the chicken:
- Make the chicken; heat remaining oil in a large skillet. Gently season the chicken with salt. Cook the chicken in the skillet until it is no longer pink and cooked through.
- Add garlic and carrots and cook for 1 minute.
- Push all the ingredients to the side of a skillet and add eggs. Scramble the eggs until cooked.
Add the noodles and sauce:
- Add the remaining ingredients: add cooked rice noodles and add sauce to the skillet. Stir well to combine.
Serve:
- Serve the Pad Thai garnished with peanuts and spring onions on top, as well as lime wedges on the side.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.
We love Pad Thai! Can’t wait to try this one