Farmer’s Market Pad Thai
Make your own pad Thai at home and give it a twist unique to your region or season! The sauce for this recipe is fairly authentic and much tastier than any pre-made grocery store brand pad Thai sauce (oh, and it’s simple to make using easy-to-find ingredients). This pad Thai will highlight gorgeous veggies, your choice of protein, and classic Thai flavor that will make you forget about takeout pad Thai…at least for a night! This recipe serves two very generous portions, but it is easily doubled. If you double it, I suggest making it in the skillet in two batches to have enough space to stir and sauté. Enjoy!
Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Level: Medium/Hard
Ingredients - serves 2 hungry people
7-8 oz. rice noodles
1 heaping cup of thinly sliced protein, such as chicken, pork, tofu, beef or whole shrimp
3 cloves of garlic, minced
About 2 cups of good sautéing veggies (ex: carrot, onion, peppers, green beans, squash, etc, etc). All cut into similar sizes.
3 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. lime juice
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. fish sauce
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes for medium heat, more for more, less for less
3 tbsp. olive or canola oil
2 eggs
Optional: crushed peanuts, fresh veggies or bean sprouts, lime wedges or cilantro for topping
Remove rice noodles from packaging and place in a large bowl. Completely cover the rice noodles with warm water and set aside. This is how they “cook”. Do not boil them like regular pasta - they will get mushy and sticky. Keep an eye on them while prepping the rest of the food. You’ll want to drain them when they feel floppy, but still are slightly underdone. They’ll cook more later under heat in your wok or skillet!
Prep your sautéing veggies and garlic and place in the same bowl. The garlic needs to be minced, and the veggies all cut a similar size so they’ll sauté in a similar amount of time. Use any in season veggie, and you’ll want to have roughly two cups all prepped. Set this bowl aside.
Prep your meat selection: if using pork, beef, tofu or chicken, slice thin and set aside. Use whole shrimp if this is your choice.
Make your sauce: in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce, crushed red pepper, and sugar. Set aside.
Heat up a wok or large skillet for 1 minute on high heat. Add 2 tbsp. of canola or olive oil and let it heat up for another minute. Add meat choice and stir in the oil. Let sit to brown for 30 seconds, stir, and let sit. Repeat until meat is throughly cooked. Remove from skillet and place the protein DIRECTLY IN the bowl with your sauce that you’ve made. Turn off heat until you are ready to cook the rest of the pad Thai.
Heat the wok or skillet back up on medium high for 1 minute. If there isn’t much oil left in the skillet, add a tbsp more. You’ll want a couple tbsps. in the skillet or wok for the remainder of the cooking process. Add the bowl of garlic and veggies to the hot oil and sauté until lightly browned and soft - about 3 minutes.
Push the veggies to the side of the skillet. Crack the two eggs directly over the heat. Let the bottoms turn white and cook, then begin scrambling the eggs separate from the veggies. Once fully cooked, mix in with the veggies.
Add the bowl of sauce and protein. Stir in well. Add the rice noodles and stir. Keep cooking and stirring the rice noodles until they are more wilted and have fully soaked in all loose sauce. If you can still see liquid sauce in the skillet, it needs more time to soak in!
Turn off the heat and serve warm!
Plating: Scoop out what you’d like to eat, and top with fresh bean sprouts and other fresh cut veggies of your choosing, lime wedges, peanuts, etc. Enjoy!