A traditional tamarind sauce, rice noodles, chicken, peanuts, and stir-fried eggs make up this real pad thai recipe. Add fresh bean sprouts and chives as a garnish. The pad thai at Thai Tom served as a model for this recipe.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 12 ounces dried rice noodles
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup distilled white vinegar
- ¼ cup fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced into thin strips
- 1 ½ teaspoons garlic, minced
- 4 large eggs, beaten
- 1 ½ tablespoons white sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 cup coarsely ground peanuts
- 2 cups bean sprouts
- ½ cup chopped fresh chives
- 1 tablespoon paprika, or to taste
- 1 medium lime, cut into wedges
Instructions
- Place rice noodles into a large bowl and cover with several inches of room temperature water; let soak for 30 to 60 minutes. Drain.
- Whisk 1/2 cup sugar, vinegar, fish sauce, and tamarind paste together in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, then remove from the heat.
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook and stir until chicken is no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the heat.
- Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in eggs; scramble until eggs are nearly cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add chicken and rice noodles and stir until well combined.
- Stir in tamarind mixture, 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, and salt; cook until noodles are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in peanuts and cook until heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Garnish with bean sprouts, chives, and paprika; serve with lime wedges.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 583 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 79 g |
| Cholesterol | 132 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 22 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 1479 mg |
| Sugars | 23 g |
| Fat | 21 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This tastes JUST like the Pad Thai at our local Thai house and I want to jump for joy! My husband wanted it a bit spicier so he added some sriracha.
I was reluctant to spend the money for fish sauce and tamarind paste (had to go to a specialty Asian market) because I didn’t know if I’d like this, but it is restaurant quality. Next time I make it, I’ll soak the noodles the full 60 minutes because I had to cook them longer, and it caused the pad thai to get a little dry. I added a tiny bit of water and put a lid on to create steam, and that helped soften them. Instead of lime on the side, I sprinkled a little lime juice right into it, and I also put the bean sprouts in to cook a little. I am really pleased with how it turned out. Will make it again!
I used the recipe basically as it was written, although I used good quality crunchy peanut butter instead of peanuts. I am afraid that I didnt like the result. The sauce was too strongly vinegary and sweet and the overall dish was very claggy and sickly.
Like others said; WAY too much vinegar, and too sweet
This was exactly what I was hoping for! I followed the recipe except to boil the noodles for four minutes as directed on the package. I also used Tamarind Concentrate rather than paste, so I converted it with one Tbl Tamarind and 3 Tbl water. I served it with bean sprouts on the bottom, noodles next and topped it off with peanuts, green onions and a lime wedge. I added a dab of garlic chili sauce for a little kick. Noodles were perfect, and the taste was right on the money!!! I’ll be making this over and over again!!
I will say that the noodles I used needed to be soaked for 2 hours rather than just one (according to the package). I only did one, and the noodles came out quite chewy. Also, the sauce wound up being a bit too thick the first time I made this recipe, so I added a full 1 cup of chicken stock to the sauce and that fixed both the noodle chewiness and dryness perfectly! I feel like the chicken stock also pulled the flavors together better the second time I made this recipe. The look, the flavor, the mouth feel – perfectly authentic! The lime juice and a bit of sriracha sauce just really finish the flavor profile for this yummy dish. =9
Ever since my favorite Thai restaurant/grocery burned down, I’ve been looking for pad Thai sauce. All the other readymade sauces I’ve tried are not quite right so I decided to make my own. I ordered tamarind concentrate instead of paste from Amazon not realizing my error but it was fine. This sauce is delicious, but use sparingly as the flavors are intense.
Easy to make. Just assemble the parts (noodles, chicken, sauce, egg and garlic, toppers) Since I don’t like my noodles too aldente, will probably boil them for a short time before putting everything together. And…Next time I’ll get a photo; Hubs couldn’t get the green onions and sprouts…looks real dull with no green, but is delicious! Am enjoying it with slices of pickled ginger
This was absolutely excellent. One of my favorite recipes I’ve made ever. I doubled most of the ingredients for the sauce, per the previous comments – but used the original amount of vinegar. I substituted tamarind for a tablespoon of brown sugar plus a generous amount of lime juice. I used red pad Thai rice noodles rather than the white rice noodles, but they worked perfectly. I appreciate the previous comments and recipe recommendation it to just soak the noodles in water rather than boil them as the package had stated. I made the noodles in advance and tossed them in a colander with cold water, patted them dry, and then hand massaged a little bit of peanut oil to keep them separated and easy to use when it was time.
I made this! I loved it. Very easy and delicious
Was good but too much salt and noodles were starchy and could be more tender. I soaked them at roam temp for an hour. I will do again with adjustments.
This recipe was the first time I’ve made good Asian noodles. Usually mine are a gooey mess. These came out just like a restaurant. The soaking of the noodles was a game changer. They needed to soak in cool water for a full hour, and then when they cooked for 4 minutes in the pan sauce they soaked up the liquid from the sauce and got soft and perfect. I substituted soy sauce for the fish sauce and it was still really good. I left out the salt altogether.
I loved this recipe!
Ran out of dried rice noodle but this type of noodle works too!
I was impressed. The tamarind makes it slightly limey tasting so next time i might back off on the fresh wedges of limes. I did add a little more water and a little extra olive oil to soften the noodles but this is a great recipe and we will be making it again and again.
find tamarind!!! this recipe is absolutely beautiful. I have been trying for over a year to replace pad thai from a restaurant that closed down near me. if you try to substitute tamarind you will only add more of the same ingredients in the rest of the recipe. tamarind seems to be what makes pad Thai taste like pad thai!! I had to search far and wide to find it, but if you can get to any Asian market you will find it or you can order online.
Was fun to make.. I made my own Tamarind paste as well.. Should include a disaster preparedness disclaimer for the state of the kitchen when I was done… I used Flat-Iron Sweet-Heat flakes to add the more than reasonable heat I like. I will definitely be making again.
Great recipe! Very authentic flavor, I recommend to make extra sauce if your noodles start to get dry. Excellent, 5 stars !
It was a bit on the sweet side and my noodles turned out a bit sticky too. When you get to the stage of putting everything together in the frying pan, be ready!! Everything seems to happen fast at the end and turning around to put something else in is not the way to go. When I make this again, I think I’ll try a different noodle, cut down a bit on the sugar and use some chilis in oil to do the final stir fry. All in all, pretty good taste!
So delicious!! I’m Thai and this recipe is spot on. Thank you for posting.
A little too sweet for me. I would cut back in the sugar by half, and maybe add some crushed red pepper for some heat. But the flavor was good otherwise