Chicken pad thai
40 min · 43 g protein · 462 cals / serving
The street-stall favorite made at home: rice noodles tossed with chicken, egg and a tangy tamarind, fish sauce and lime sauce, then piled with crunchy bean sprouts, carrot, green onion and chopped peanuts. More chicken and vegetables than noodles, which keeps every bite loaded.
Ingredients
- 140 g rice noodles, dry, flat, about 5 mm (1/4 inch) wide
Sauce
- 2 tbsp tamarind, tamarind paste (or 1 tbsp of the dark, thick concentrate)
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 lime, juice
- 2 tsp sriracha hot sauce
- 2 tsp canola oil
- 1 1/4 lb chicken breast, thinly sliced
- 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 carrot, in matchsticks
- 3 eggs, beaten
- 5 big handfuls bean sprouts
- 4 green onions, in 3 cm (1-inch) lengths
To serve
- 2 1/2 tbsp roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped
- a handful fresh cilantro
Steps
- Soak the noodles in hot tap water for 10–15 minutes, depending on the brand, until bendy but still firm in the center, then drain. They finish cooking in the pan, so they should be underdone now.
- Stir the tamarind, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and sriracha together until the sugar dissolves. Taste: it should be sour, salty and sweet in roughly that order.
- Heat half the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Stir-fry the chicken in one layer (in two batches if your pan is small) for 4–5 minutes, until golden and 165°F inside, and tip onto a plate.
- Add the rest of the oil, then the shallot, garlic and carrot for 1 minute. Push everything to one side, pour the eggs into the empty space and scramble until fully set with no runny egg left, about 1 minute (160°F), then break them up.
- Add the drained noodles and the sauce and toss with tongs for 2–3 minutes, until the noodles have soaked up the sauce and are tender; add a splash of water if they stick. Return the chicken, add the bean sprouts and green onion, and toss 30 seconds more. Serve topped with the peanuts and cilantro.
Good to know
Where do I find tamarind?
Asian grocers and most large supermarkets sell it as a paste or concentrate in a jar. If you only find a block of pulp, soak 30 g in a few tablespoons of hot water and press it through a sieve. In a pinch, use an extra tablespoon of lime juice with a teaspoon of ketchup; it is not the same, but it is good.
Why are my noodles mushy or stuck together?
They were soaked too long or the pan was crowded. Soak only until bendy, keep the heat high, and if your wok is small, make it in two batches.
Can I make it low carb?
Swap the rice noodles for zucchini ribbons or thinly sliced cabbage, added for the last 2 minutes so they stay crisp-tender, and leave out the brown sugar: a score of about 71 instead of 59. For paleo, use cashews instead of peanuts.
Alternatives
Per
- Calories
- 116
- Protein
- (38%)
- 11 g
- Fat
- (27%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (35%)
- 11 g
- of which sugar
- 3 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 254 mg
More meals
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 1850 kcal goes into the pot and 1739 g of ingredients comes out as about 1590 g of food: 116 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.