Chicken noodles with Thai peanut sauce

Skip your local Thai restaurant when you're craving chicken noodles with Thai peanut sauce and do it at home instead! Thai peanut sauce and noodles couldn't be easier to make! I resisted posting too many Asian-inspired recipes here because of a little secret: I don't spice up. It seems that many favorite Asian recipes have a good dose of warmth for them, and I'm not a big fan of it. But these Thai peanut noodles with peanut sauce are perfect for those who like a good dose of Sriracha and those who don't. Thai noodles with peanut sauce and chicken are my new favorites! This Thai peanut sauce blew my mind when I started testing recipes. Some recipes call for coconut milk, fish sauce, and curry paste, while others stick with peanut butter and sriracha. So what's the right way?

The more I researched, the more I discovered that there were some ingredients in common and others that were basically home cooks trying to make it. Coconut milk creates a creamy sauce, but it completely mattifies peanut butter, so it was easy. The sriracha or chili flakes appeared often, but in the end the sriracha won because we liked how it was incorporated into the sauce so evenly. The fish sauce looked like it was going to be a winner since many Asian recipes use it, but again it seemed to overwhelm the other flavors, so we got rid of it. Soy sauce or tamari, his gluten-free friend, was a better choice for that salty flavor without the taste of fish. Also, we liked how he darkened the sauce and smoothed it out. Vinegar and sesame oil went back and forth in recipes, but lacked that subtle flavor when it was gone, so I added it again.

Here's what we got: ginger and garlic for sure, peanut butter and sriracha for the flavors of basic sauce and a handful of lime juice to liven it all up. We used hot water instead of coconut milk to dilute things a bit and you could definitely add more if you wish. Okay, but what about Thai peanut noodles? Well, the noodles were a bit complicated too. It is much harder for us to find a good Pad Thai, Rice Noodles or other Asian noodles, so we had to look for one that would hold up to the salty sauce but was not so big and fat that we lost the sauce. We ended up using pasta or angel hair noodles, and while I'm sure there are better options, this was the most affordable and appetizing for Thai peanut noodles of the week.

Ahhhh, Thai peanut chicken also needs a moment. You see, grilling or cooking chicken and then seasoning it with a sauce has become quite flat. The sauce did not stay on the chicken and the flavor was lacking. You could perfectly say that it was a simple piece of chicken with a little sauce. We decided to marinate the chicken in homemade peanut sauce and, although it is absolutely cold outside, we had no choice but to grill. Marinating penetrates the chicken all the way, so every bite has a wonderful explosion of that irresistible peanut sauce. The grill gives the chicken that smokier, enhanced flavor, and those little black grill marks not only make the meat more appetizing, but really take it to a new level.

Ingredients 

Chicken breast

Peppers

Sliced red cabbage

Cucumber

Sesame seeds

Coriander

Roasted salted peanuts

Green onions

Dough

And to make easy peanut sauce, you will need:

Creamy peanut butter

Sriracha

Lime juice

Honey

Toasted sesame oil

Water

Fresh ginger

Garlic

Soy sauce

Rice vinegar

Procedure

Thai peanut noodles with homemade peanut butter sauce take little time to prepare. Here's how I make homemade Thai peanut sauce and peanut noodles.

Mix together the peanut sauce easy. Marinate the chicken in half the peanut sauce for at least an hour. Grill the marinated chicken until cooked. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. Drain the pasta and season with the remaining Thai peanut sauce, grilled chicken and vegetables. Complete your Thai noodles with peanut sauce with peanuts, coriander, sesame seeds and green onion.

Note

When stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator, Thai peanut sauce will last up to 2 weeks. A quick note: ginger is best if it's fresh in this peanut sauce recipe, but figuring out how to peel ginger can really distract some people from wanting to use it. We recommend peeling ginger with a spoon, not a knife or potato peeler. Just scrape the spoon on the ginger and the peel will come off right away and then use a fine-holed grater to grate it, or you can chop it with a knife. You should also note that we prefer to marinate our chicken in Thai peanut sauce at night, although an hour will work if you are in a hurry. I also like to prepare all the vegetables once I put aside the chicken for marinating. I put the ready vegetables in a 3-compartment container. I've already prepared the meat, so I guess it might take another 5 minutes to prepare the vegetables, and the container keeps everything fresh without mixing the flavors.