Simple Pad Thai
Updated June 10, 2024
- Total Time
- 25 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 4ounces fettuccine-width rice stick noodles
- ¼cup peanut oil
- 1 to 4tablespoons tamarind paste
- ¼cup fish sauce (nam pla)
- ⅓cup honey
- 2tablespoons rice vinegar
- ½teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
- ¼cup chopped scallions
- 1garlic clove, minced
- 2eggs
- 1small head Napa cabbage, shredded (about 4 cups)
- 1cup mung bean sprouts
- ½pound peeled shrimp, pressed tofu or a combination
- ½cup roasted peanuts, chopped
- ¼cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 2limes, quartered
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)
540 calories; 25 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 12 grams monounsaturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 60 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 29 grams sugars; 24 grams protein; 1618 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Put noodles in a large bowl and add boiling water to cover. Let sit until noodles are just tender; check every 5 minutes or so to make sure they do not get too soft. Drain, drizzle with one tablespoon peanut oil to keep from sticking and set aside. Meanwhile, put 1 tablespoon tamarind paste, fish sauce, honey and vinegar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and bring just to a simmer. Taste and add more tamarind paste if desired. It should be piquant, but not unpleasantly sour. Stir in red pepper flakes and set aside.
- Step 2
Put remaining 3 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; when oil shimmers, add scallions and garlic and cook for about a minute. Add eggs to pan; once they begin to set, scramble them until just done. Add cabbage and bean sprouts and continue to cook until cabbage begins to wilt, then add shrimp or tofu (or both).
- Step 3
When shrimp begin to turn pink and tofu begins to brown, add drained noodles to pan along with sauce. Toss everything together to coat with tamarind sauce and combine well. When noodles are warmed through, serve, sprinkling each dish with peanuts and garnishing with cilantro and lime wedges.
Private Notes
Comments
After reading comments and looking at the recipe it did seem off balance. I checked and Mark's recipe in his book, How to Cook Everything, and the two have major differences. Using the book as a reference, I changed this recipe to the following: 12 ounces rice noodles, 3-4 tblsps pure tamarind (after cooking sauce, it needs to be pressed through a sieve) or 1 tblsp tamarind concentrate, 2 tblsps minced garlic, 1 tsp dried hot chili peppers and the rest stayed the same. Tasted very authentic.
"Meanwhile, make a sauce from tamarind paste, now easily found in supermarkets." I don't know in which dimension Mr. Bittman Shops, but if one leaves driving distance of the five boroughs, tamarind paste is rarer than Unobtainium and about as easily found as Kryptonite. This sentence should not have passed an editor with a pulse.
After reading several of your notes, we've edited the recipe to suggest a 1-4 TB range of tamarind paste. Tamarind products vary WIDELY in their potency, so this is really a dish you need to taste and season as you go. Start with 1 TB and add more if you desire. I hope that helps!
Terrible! We love Pad Thai and have had it many times in restaurants. This was a pale, watery, tasteless, brown mess. Bean sprouts should be provided raw with the hot noodles so you can combine them and they stay crunchy. Same with scallions, not chopped but in short lengths. The entire sequence of cooking the ingredients is wrong. Simpler, maybe, but awful. Waste of good ingredients. Oh, and much easier to prepare in a wok.
This was so good. I combined with the other NYT pad Thai recipe and got something pretty close to my local take out. - didn't use cabbage - didn't use shrimp - doubled the noodles - 3 tbsp Asian Best Concentrated Cooking Tamarind from HMart - 3 eggs I have to imagine 100% of the confusion around this recipe comes from the varying strengths of tamarind concentrate because I see lots of people saying paste and mine is very liquid. Maybe say what brand you use when you leave your comment so others can adjust!
I can’t believe I made such a delicious pad Thai!!! Thanks NYT the recipe is great. I made it with chicken and I marinated 1lb of chicken with 1tbsp of oyster sauce for 15 min and stir fried the chicken before adding to the noodles. I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying this!