Shrimp Pad Thai
This has been on my menu plan a few times of late, and each time, several of you have asked for the recipe.
Like most of the recipes I make, this comes from Cook's Illustrated. It's the only Pad Thai recipe I've ever tried, but my family likes it and so I haven't seen the sense in trying another version.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 😉
While I've had Pad Thai in restaurants a few times, I didn't realize until recently that the noodles are rice, not wheat. So, if you need to eat gluten-free, this is a pretty handy-dandy recipe because it totally does not scream "gluten-free!" when you eat it.
Cook's Illustrated says that a number of Pad Thai recipes call for hard-to-find ingredients, but theirs is pretty simple. It does call for fish sauce and rice noodles, but those are both easy to locate at a grocery store (as long as you're not at Aldi!).
Pad Thai cooks up in just a few minutes, rapid-fire fashion, so you will need to set aside some time to prep all the ingredients. If you don't have them ready before you start cooking, you will feel mildly stressed. 😉
First up, you'll want to start the rice noodles. Rice noodles are a little weird in that you soak them in hot water rather than boiling them.
This takes 20 minutes, so you can cover them with hot tap water and leave them to soak while you prep the other ingredients.
To make the sauce, combine lime juice, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, cayenne pepper, and vegetable oil.
Fish sauce is a foul-smelling liquid that somehow cooks up into something very edible. But every time I use it, I have to remind myself that it does not taste as bad as it smells.
Whatever you do, don't take a big whiff of it. So gross.
Whisk 2 eggs and ⅛ teaspoon salt together.
Peel 12 ounces of shrimp.
Rinse the bean sprouts.
And chop the scallions and cilantro.
By this time, your rice noodles should be lovely and soft. Drain 'em, and set 'em aside.
Heat vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. The recipe calls for a nonstick skillet, but I just use my stainless steel All-Clad skillet and it works fine. I need a bit more oil than the recipe calls for, but otherwise it works fine!
Add the shrimp to the hot pan, sprinkle them with ⅛ teaspoon of salt, and cook them for a few minutes on each side, or until they're opaque.
The recipe doesn't specify this, but I have much better luck with shrimp browning a bit if I pat them dry with paper towels first.
Dry food = better browning.
Remove the shrimp from the pan and add a little more oil. Add minced garlic and chopped onion, and saute for a minute or two, just til they're softened. Add the eggs and scramble them until they're just cooked.
Add the drained noodles and the fish sauce mixture and cook the whole mess for a few minutes, using a tongs to make sure all the noodles get coated in sauce.
Add the shrimp, bean sprouts, and scallions, and cook and stir for a few minutes, until everything is coated nicely and the noodles are soft.
I always have a little bit of trouble getting the bean sprouts to mix with the noodles, but it does happen with enough persistence!
Then you're pretty much done. Sprinkle cilantro liberally over the Pad Thai, along with chopped salted peanuts (my kids think that sounds gross, so we skip the peanuts.).
And I like to drizzle sriracha sauce over mine. So good!
Shrimp Pad Thai
Printable Shrimp Pad Thai Recipe
serves 4
⅓ cup lime juice
⅓ cup water
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
8 ounces dried rice stick noodles, about â…› inch wide
2 large eggs
¼ teaspoon table salt
12 ounces medium shrimp (30-40 count), peeled and deveined
3 cloves garlic, pressed through garlic press or minced (1 tablespoon)
4 tablespoons minced onion
6 tablespoons chopped salted roasted peanuts
3 cups bean sprouts (6 ounces)
5 medium scallions, green parts only, sliced thin on sharp bias
¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves
lime wedges
In a medium bowl, combine lime juice, water, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, cayenne pepper, and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil.
Pour hot tap water over rice noodles in large bowl; let sit 20 minutes, then drain.
In a small bowl, beat eggs and add ⅛ teaspoon salt.
Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat until oil is nearly smoking. Add shrimp and sprinkle with ⅛ teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp are opaque and pink. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add 1 tablespoon oil to now-empty pan, return to heat, and add onion and garlic. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until onion is softened. Add beaten eggs to pan, and cook, stirring constantly to scramble (20-30 seconds).
Add drained noodles to pan; stir to combine. Pour fish sauce mixture over noodles, tossing to combine. Add bean sprouts, cooked shrimp, and ¼ cup peanuts and all but ¼ cup scallions; toss to combine. Cook about two minutes, or until noodles are tender and Pad Thai is heated through.
Sprinkle Pad Thai with cilantro and remaining scallions. Serve with lime wedges.
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Ooh, I love the peanuts. That little bit of crunch makes me happy!
Kristen, in previous posts you have mentioned one of your children is allergic to shrimp. Do you substitute chicken? I love Pad Thai but cannot eat egg or crustaceans. Sometimes a shop owner is willing to make it for me and now you have a shared a recipe I can use. Thank you.
I have to agree fish sauce smells funky as do a number of Asian ingredients. I love the peanuts on my food as it adds great crunch.
If Zoe is eating Pad Thai with us, I cook the shrimp in a separate pan, and wait until the very end to add the shrimp to the main pan. Before I add the shrimp, I dish Zoe's plate up, and she just eats it without the shrimp.
You can definitely use chicken instead of shrimp, though. And tofu is also common in Pad Thai.
Thank you
CI gets very specific about what kind of rice noodles to use, and how wide they need to be, and so on. Don't get too worried about it. Any medium-to-wide, preferably flat, rice noodle will do. In a pinch, any rice noodle will do, but the really skinny ones don't do a great job of supporting the other ingredients.
This recipe sounds wonderful. However, it is important to note that fish sauce, like many other Asian condiments, may contain wheat. If you are celiac or allergic, make sure to check the label.
Oh, that's good to know! I didn't realize some brands might contain wheat.
Ooooh, delish! I'm definitely trying this one out with Mr. Picky Pincher. I'm not a fan of shrimp myself, so I'll do chicken on mine.
We did try out a vegan pad thai not too long ago. What's funny is that pad thai is inherently NOT vegan, so it was a bit of a challenge. It tasted pretty good, but it definitely wasn't pad thai. Mr. Picky Pincher called it "Asian spaghetti," but that's pretty much what it was! We never made it again. 😛
I'm hoping that this pad thai recipe will be just what we need!
I too had a, less than desirable, pad thai experience. I bought several ingredients that I had to drive all over town for and no one in my family liked it. My dog wouldn't eat it either. I am scared to make it again because I don't want to waste my money.
Right...just the fish sauce alone would be problematic, right? That would be sort of hard to find a good substitute for!
@Kristen,
Fish sauce creates one of the four pillars of thai cooking- Unami. So it's a salty smokey flavor. I can't have fish sauce, so I substitute, believe it or not, with low sodium soy sauce with just a touch of either black strapp molasses or really good maple syrup. It gives the touch of smoke.
If you can handle it, sauces designed to add smoke work as well.
@ms.b214@gmail.com,
Not an expert cook by any means, but stuck in the south for pandemic. I can't stand the food I grew up with due to boredom, so I was desperate for Pad Thai. I found a guy from Laos who was delighted to teach me.
I just made this on Saturday! Super good - I used the tamarind paste they recommended instead of lime juice and since i couldn't find bean sprouts, I sub'd red pepper strips and just cooked them with the shallot and scallions. Do you do this in a couple of batches? I cook half the amount in my skillet and it's pretty much all I can handle without everything spilling out when I toss ingredients together...
Now I'm curious to try it with the tamarind paste. I'll have to hunt it down! I did find bean sprouts easily.
I can make one recipe's worth of this in my 12-inch skillet, although I do have to be a bit careful when I first add the sprouts and such to the noodles.
@Kristen,
Tamarind actual root can be found at whole foods, but you have to dig. The paste can be ordered from Amazon.
Signed,
Someone who grew up with adults who had the food tastes of a five year. Learned to figure it out. In large city now, so this isn't an issue, but I remember my substitutions!
Yum! Pad Thai is one of my all time favorite foods! I'll have to give this recipe a try. (I'm a huge sriracha fan, I use it on everything!)
This looks so good and the recipe is easy! I had one before and I liked it.
Also, they can find fish sauce and rice noodles at any Asian store.
I absolutely LOVE pad thai at a restaurant so I'm definitely going to try this version at home! Thank you!!
Yum! Great photography, Kristen!
Great tips! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I was never exposed to Thai food growing up. My husband had enjoyed some yummy Thai food several times in a town where he was working, so he suggested we try a Thai restaurant when we went on vacation one year. My dish was fine, but his food tasted rotten, and I mean really like decomposing food out of a garbage can, and they wouldn't reimburse him. He has refused all Thai food since then. If it wasn't for that, I would love to try this recipe! Maybe one day he'll get over his horrible experience and try it again.
Would you be willing to fudge on the origin? There are versions from Vietnam and Hong Kong, and the dish can be found in Singapore and Malaysia.
Do you double this recipe for your family of 6? I mean, 8 oz of noodles doesn't sound like much. We have 5 with 2 hungry teens plus a 12-y.o.
BTW, they recently had Pad Thai noodles at Aldi as a special. I bought some since my son is Gluten Free.
Thanks for the recipe!
My whole crew has never been home for dinner all at the same time so far when I've made this, so one recipe has been fine.
However, CI says this serves four, so if you have a hungry family of five, one recipe might not be enough.
Amazing! I had pad Thai tonight from a restaurant and was just telling my husband we should make it at home. Thank you!
Hi Kristen! I live in Laos, just across the border from Thailand (literally, I can see Thailand) and am currently addicted to pad Thai from a local food stall. Can I offer a few easy tweaks? Try making it in your cast iron skillet - yum! Also, if you soak the rice noodles for a shorter time, maybe only 5-10 minutes, just until they can barely wrap around your finger without breaking, you'll end up with a really great texture that is my favorite part of pad Thai. The noodles continue to take in liquid while you're stir frying them, so they easily get too gummy if they're fully cooked when you start the frying, and then it's harder to get all of the ingredients to mix together well. Plus, yay for a reduced prep time, right? 🙂
For those that want a vegetarian option, firm tofu is a standard pad Thai ingredient here, even in the meat versions. Cut it into small cubes or strips and brown it well as you would the shrimp or chicken.
An advanced tweak: if you want your pad Thai to taste like what you've had at a Thai restaurant, substitute tamarind paste for the water and rice vinegar in this recipe. It'll make a big difference. Most likely, though, you'll only be able to find tamarind paste at an Asian grocery store, so if your family likes the current sauce, enjoy it!
The original CI recipe does call for tamarind paste, but I couldn't easily find it, so I followed their substitution directions.
I'll have to see if I can find some tamarind paste somewhere.
Hi,
Many have mentioned using tofu instead of shrimp if you are a vegetarian, but what could you use instead of fish sauce? I know it adds a nice rich flavor.
Also, I avoid using hot tap water for cooking, wondering if soaking the noodles in heated (not boiling) water would be better.
Thanks!
Oh yes, you can definitely just heat up water to soak the noodles.
I'm not sure what to recommend instead of fish sauce. I did some googling and some people are recommending soy sauce or worcestershire sauce. And here's a recipe for homemade vegan fish sauce: http://veganmiam.com/recipes/vegan-fish-sauce
Be careful with the worcestershire. Classic worcestershire sauce is based on anchovies, with historical roots in fish sauce. British and Canadian versions have anchovies, some US versions don't have anchovies (sometimes listed as "natural flavorings"), some do. You have to check the label for "vegetarian" to be sure.
Interestingly, the vegetarian worcestershires typically use tamarind paste in place of the anchovies. So there's definitely a broadly-acknowledged equivalence going on there.
This was my first Pad Thai-Family loved it and no left overs!!
Yay!
Made this for dinner tonight and it was so good! My husband really liked it.
I know this is a really late comment, but I keep coming back to this recipe. Its the best I've ever found, that tastes great (and similar to what I have had in other countries)
Did a Thai cooking class last year, and this recipe is so much bettter 🙂
Thought I would comment to say Thanks... its amazing!
Thanks SO much for this recipe! I wanted you to know this is my #1 go to meal for company (with butter fried scallops on top, as my husband is a fisherman) and it's always a hit. My kids don't like it, so I make something else for them, usually Mac and cheese, so there's plenty for the grownups, and everyone's happy! I recently saw the ATK recipe for Pad Thai, and it was amazingly different, and complicated. I'm sure it's good and maybe I'll try it someday - but this one is so easy and perfect, maybe not!
I do double the fish sauce (this happened once by accident and we couldn't believe the new level of delicious) and replace the oil with peanut butter for extra yum.
yay! I'm so glad it's served you well.
Delicious!! Made this for dinner tonight and it was a huge hit. Followed recipe exactly and we will definitely be adding this to our rotation. Definitely worth prepping ahead for less chaos as it does cook so quickly, thanks for that tip and the entire recipe! Cheers.