My Authentic Prawn Pad Thai Recipe is an unbelievably flavourful dish that you can rustle up in about 20 minutes! It’s salty, spicy and zesty and sure to be a hit with anyone you put this dish in front of.
This dish was as authentic as I could make it whilst still using ingredients that are accessible in our local supermarkets. So one trip to Asda and my local asian grocers (which are way more common than you’d think, juts google your closest one!) and I was ready to go. The ingredients that I couldn’t find at Asda and had to buy from my Asian supermarket were fish sauce and tamarind paste. Everything else I bought at Asda or already had in my fridge!
TIPS For Authentic Prawn Pad Thai Recipe
- Limes > Lemons, South-East Asian food especially particularly Thai cuisine, always uses limes as they’re a lot punchier in their zesty flavour!
- Don’t add your beansprouts in too early otherwise they won’t have that firm bite to them which characteristic of a Pad Thai.
- Use rice noodles, not regular egg noodles!
- Ideally use raw prawns!
Once cooked they go pink. On this occasion I went for the cooked pink ones as they had run out. If you do use raw prawns, then sauté them in your wok with 3 cloves of crushed garlic first and then set them aside. If you’re using the pink cooked ones like me then just follow my recipe! The key is to not overcook them because they’ll shrink in size and become really tough. For the cooked ones, which you’ll usually find in the freezer aisle. Place them in a bowl of room-temperature water to thaw and then drain them and add straight into the wok with the spring onions, peanuts and beansprouts.
The key to a good Prawn Pad Thai is super quick stir-frying in a large pre heated wok on a medium to high heat throughout. If you cook like this, it shouldn’t take longer than about 10 minutes to make the whole dish (excluding veg preparation)
You could even customise my Pad Thai recipe to include chicken and or beef. Or you could totally swap out the meat based protein for tofu! There really are no rules and almost all of my recipes are made so that you can customise them to suit your tastes and what you’ve got leftover in the fridge.
Video Tutorial
Prawn Pad Thai
Ingredients
- 1 shallot
- 4 garlic cloves
- 5 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 150 g roasted peanuts
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 2 tsp red chilli flakes
- 4 tbsp sriracha
- 1½ tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp tamarind paste
- 400 g rice noodles
- 4 spring onions chopped diagonally
- 200 g beansprouts
- 200 g jumbo king prawns
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Begin by adding your rice noodles into a pot of boiling water and set a timer for 5 minutes. Once boiled, drain and then transfer the noodles to a bowl of cold water.
- Finely chop your shallot and garlic cloves. Then roughly chop your nuts and set them aside.
- Heat up the oil in a large wok on a medium-high heat, once heated add in your shallots and garlic. Keep the wok moving with a pushing and pulling action with the handle of the wok, alternatively keep the shallots moving by stirring continuously with a spoon. Stir-fry for 3 minutes.
- Add in the brown sugar, red chilli flakes, sriracha, fish sauce, oyster sauce and tamarind paste. Continue to stir vigorously for another 2 minutes. Add in half the juice of 1 lime.
- Add in the noodles, prawns, spring onion, beansprouts and a handful of the peanuts that we chopped at the start. Toss the noodles for 3 minutes or stir, if stirring be careful not to break up the noodles.
- Push the noodles to one side of the pan and crack the eggs straight into the wok, with a spoon scramble them and then once they start to solidy, incorporate with he noodles. Toss until the egg has fully been mixed into the noodles and then remove from the heat.
- Plate up and garnish with a lime wedge, the remaining nuts, chilli flakes and spring onion!
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