Crunchy Thai Peanut Sauce

Aug 25

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During the beginning of the 2020 Safer at Home order, one of the small things that brought me joy in a hard time was seeing that so many people were trying new things in their kitchens and learning about food. It was a weird and oddly nice time for at-home cooks everywhere, from those who hadn’t picked up a spatula in their lives, to those like me, who cooked on the regular anyway, but now had even more time on their hands to start experimenting more. It was in this first week of staying home that I decided to make homemade salad rolls with peanut sauce.

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It had always been something I liked, but that I had somewhat forgotten about until recently. We had ordered salad rolls from multiple local restaurants in the last few weeks, and were on a bit of a kick, I guess you could say. The day I got laid off from my job at the time, I was a storm of conflicting emotions - nervous, relieved, confused, overwhelmed - and my husband and I went to our local grocery store to get groceries for the next couple weeks. He suggested that we make homemade salad rolls as a pick-me-up some time that week, as he knew we’d have the time. As a passing thought, I figured I should probably make some peanut sauce as a dip, since that’s what I had most commonly had them with. So, I found a random recipe online somewhere and whipped one up with what I had in my kitchen. I only had crunchy peanut butter at the time, and...whoa! That made all the difference for me!

The recipe I had tried was too watery and too bland, so after some trial and error, I figured this one out myself, and I hope you like it as much as I do. It makes an excellent dip for salad rolls of course, providing you with some extra crunch, heat, and creaminess, but is also an awesome dressing for Thai-inspired salads, and is delicious on stir-fry, like my Peanut Noodle Chicken Stir-Fry.

Step-By-Step Walk-Through

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Step 1:

Prep Raw Ingredients

First, finely mince 3-4 cloves of garlic. Make sure all the skin is removed from the garlic, and that the hard end is cut off. Or, you can use 2 teaspoons of pre-minced garlic, but this will result in a less fresh and less garlicky flavor.

Next, grate ¼ teaspoon of fresh ginger root. Before grating, make sure to peel your ginger. You can do this by quickly scraping the edge of a spoon down the sides of the root. There are many videos online showing how to do this, and it’s my favorite method. Then, grate using the second largest size grater on a box grater.

Step 2:

Mix Sauce

Combine ⅓ cup crunchy peanut butter, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 3 tablespoons honey, 2 heaping teaspoons chili garlic sauce (I use and recommend Huy Fong, which can be found at most grocery stores), 1 ½ tablespoons of rice vinegar, and your ginger and garlic in a medium sized bowl and whisk well, until smooth and well-combined.