A recipe for easy homemade pad thai featuring a delicious homemade pad thai sauce. Whether you’re a lover of all things Thai and ethnic food related or you’ve never tried your hand at this kind of thing before, this recipe is accessible and easy. 

After years of making homemade pad thai and being asked for the recipe, I’m finally sharing it today. It’s not that I never wanted to share the recipe before but this is something that I cook without a recipe so it takes some discipline to actually make myself measure everything out and write it down. I also struggle with getting dinner made before it gets dark outside and I don’t like sharing recipe posts with less than stellar photos. I was determined to finally make the recipe yesterday so when I got home from the gym at 7 p.m. it was like an episode of Iron Chef to get this dish together before it got dark. (You should have seen the aftermath in the kitchen…)

So here’s my homemade pad thai in all its glory! This is a crazy delicious recipe that’s relatively easy and doesn’t call for too many special ingredients. Well, I do have one special ingredient.

Peanut butter! But when is peanut butter not my special ingredient?

It’s the key ingredient to the super tasty homemade pad thai sauce. And let me take a pause to state that in no way is this an “authentic” pad thai recipe. I’m definitely not claiming that…but it is really good cheater pad thai.

I also want to note that the rice noodles make a big difference in this recipe so seek them out. They’re usually in the ethnic section of the store with the Asian ingredients. They seem to be more readily available these days since they are gluten-free.

The recipe I’m sharing with you today is a shrimp and chicken pad thai but note that you can use any combo of proteins that you would like. Sometimes I do tofu for a vegetarian option, sometimes chicken only, shrimp only…depends on my mood and what I have on hand.

These things really take the pad thai to a new level. You stir the bean sprouts in at the end of cooking for a little crunch and then top the pad thai with chopped peanuts, cilantro and fresh lime wedges. These four items create really nice flavor dimension along with different textures.

Whether you’re a lover of all things Thai and ethnic food related or you’ve never tried your hand at this kind of thing before, this recipe is accessible and easy. Try, enjoy and let me know what you think!