Thai Inspired Peanut Sauce

Peanut Sauce is the perfect and versitile sauce for quick weeknight meal. It’s creamy, flavorful, and loaded with nutrition. Just take whatever veggies you’ve got lying around and add some rice or noodles and you’ve got a satisfyingly “feel-good” meal. I’ve been making peanut sauce for years and it never gets old.

Now, let’s dive into this Thai Inspired Peanut Sauce ingredients, how to make it, and my Sharper Nutrition Fix which focusus on the star ingredient; peanut butter. 

Ingredients

Keep in mind, that this is just one of many peanut sauce recipes I have whipped up over the years. My recipes (in general) are always changing according to the ingredients I have on hand, what I am in the mood for, and how the recipe is being paired.

Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a great nut/seed butter for this recipe because it’s a spin on the classic Thai peanut sauce. Peanut butter is also inexpensive, healthy, and a superstar with the taste buds. When not using peanut butter, I use cashew and almond butter. Both are milder in flavor, allowling other flavors in the dish to shine.

Avocado oil: My go-to oil in this recipe. Avocado oil doesn’t add much flavor and adds healthy monounsaturated fats! I have also used sesame oil in some variations, especially when including tahini (sesame paste).

Coconut Aminos: I chose to use coconut aminos in this recipe rather than soy sauce. I enjoy using both interchangeably or together. I decided to use coconut aminos due to the sweet nature of this sauce. They are slightly sweet because it’s actually coconut nectar!

Fish Sauce: Fish Sauce is amazing. I use fish sauce in much of my cooking, with everything from salad dressings to stir-frys. Fish Sauce has a wonderful umami flavor – it’s almost magical. Don’t be fooled by the pungent fishy smell, the dressing or sauce will not taste like that.

Date syrup: Dates are my preferred sweetener for this recipe. Their unique flavor pairs well with the coconut aminos. Some other suitable sweeteners include honey, coconut sugar, agave, and table sugar.

Spicy: If you don’t want your sauce to be spicy you can limit the heat by only using black pepper. But if you like more spiciness, add any variety of heat condiments you have, such as sriracha, chili crisp, or a chili sauce like Blue Bus’ Cultured Chili Sauce. Add 1tbsp – 1/4 cup depending on the spiciness level desired.

Water: I used water to thin the peanut sauce in order to coat all the veggies, but you can also use vegetable broth. Some other great options include almond milk, coconut milk, and even your hot and starchy pasta water!

How to make Thai Inspired Peanut Sauce

1. Add all ingredients to a food processor, or blender, or mason jar, or bowl.

2. Blend, or shake, or whisk ingredients until combined.

3. Add 1 tbsp water, one at a time, until desired consistency is reached. If utilizing the mason jar or the bowl and whisk method, use hot water. Hot pasta water works wonders.

4. Now, your sauce is ready to be served up over a big ole’ bowl of noodles or as your yummy chicken wing sauce!

How to Use Peanut Sauce

I use this sauce over noodles and in stir-fries; and I especially like spooning this over spaghetti squash, which is a great way to incorporate more veggies into my diet.

Additionally, this Peanut Sauce is a fun way to kick up basic instant ramen. Just add a little bit of the ramen seasoning packet to the ramen water, then add some peanut sauce, crack an egg in the hot broth and that’s what I call ramen noodle soup. Fianlly, finish your ramen off with toppings. Top it with whatever you want, green onion, cilantro, basil, julienned carrot, radish, seeds, nuts, or kimchi!

Another fun way to use peanut sauce is as a dip! I use this recipe as a dip for my Crispy Air Fryer Chicken Wings! Pair that with a side of roasted broccoli and Bon Appetit! 

Sharper Nutrition Fix: Peanuts

Let’s talk about the star of the show

As you probably know, peanut allergies are one of the most common food allergies? Peanut allergies affect about 1 and 50 children and 1 in 200 adults. Peanut allergy occurs when your immune system misidentifies the proteins in peanuts as harmful. For more information about peanut allergies check out this article by the mayo clinic.

Why talk about peanut allergies? Because a great substitution for peanut butter in this recipe is sunflower butter, or if the eater doesn’t have tree nut allergies, cashew/almond/pecan butter will work well too!

Peanut and Tree Nut Butters in Health

 When comparing peanut butter to tree nuts and seed butters, they have very similar nutritional compositions. All three are high in protein and monounsaturated fats. Mono and polyunsaturated fats are considered “healthy” fats. These fats can aid in lowering cholesterol and the American Heart Association recommends that the majority of dietary fat be poly and monounsaturated fats. Making nut butter a very yummy and healthy addition to your diet.