5 Minutes (plus 20 minutes to soak the noodles in advance)
Pad Thai is one of Thailand's most beloved and internationally recognized dishes. It's a stir-fried noodle delight that balances sweet, salty, sour, and spicy flavors. Traditionally made with rice noodles, pad Thai is often served with shrimp, tofu, or other proteins and is known for its delicious complexity of flavors. Pad Thai, once a humble street food staple in Thailand, has become a worldwide favorite.
The dish typically features shrimp sautéed with garlic chives, shallots, eggs, tofu, preserved sweet radish, and dried shrimp, all tossed in a tangy tamarind sauce enhanced with a touch of fish sauce and palm sugar. It's finished with bean sprouts, garlic chives, a sprinkle of crushed peanuts, and a squeeze of lime. Pad Thai is often accompanied by chili flakes for those who enjoy a spicy kick.
My favorite Pad Thai sauce comes from Rayong province, a seaside fishing community east of Bangkok. Their local Pad Thai sauce is made from dried red chili, shallots, garlic, coconut sugar, and tamarind, creating a rich flavor and a reddish color. When making Pad Thai with crab or fish from Rayong, the dried red chili, shallots, and garlic combine to create a unique experience that brings back vivid memories from my childhood. While I have captured these flavors in my authentic Watcharee’s Pad Thai Sauce, I have also substituted fish sauce with salt to make our pad Thai sauce vegan.
Soak noodles in cold water until soft for 20- 30 minutes, drain and set aside.
Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat until hot. Sear shrimp on both sides for about 2 minutes. Add 1-2 tablespoons of Watcharee’s Pad Thai Sauce. Remove from heat and set aside. Do not overcook shrimp as they will cook further when added back with the noodles.
Clean the wok and add oil over medium heat until you see smoke, add tofu and dried shrimp. Cook until tofu is lightly brown on all sides which takes around one minute.
Add preserved sweet radish to the wok and stir for 30 seconds and move it to one side of the wok.
Add 1 tbs of oil and noodles. Stir until the noodles start to turn soft and translucent. Add water if needed to soften the noodles further. Do not add too much water as noodles will be too mushy. Move the noodles to the side of the wok with tofu, dried shrimp and sweet pickled radishes.
Add oil to the wok. Add the egg and break the egg yolk. Move the noodles to cover the egg and let it sit for 30 - 45 seconds. Stir the noodles and egg to mix together for another 30 seconds.
Add shrimp back to the wok. Add ¼ cup of Watcharee’s Pad Thai sauce to the noodles and shrimp. Mix everything together.
Add beansprouts, garlic chives and ground peanuts. Mix well and turn off the heat.
Recipe Video
Recipe Note
Arrange pad Thai noodles on a serving dish. Serve with fresh beansprouts, garlic chives, extra ground peanuts, and a lime wedge. Traditionally, banana blossoms and fresh pennyworth leaves are also served with pad Thai. Add hot chilies if you like spicy pad Thai!
