The Best Spicy Peanut Sauce

Whether you use it for noodle dishes, salads, a dipping sauce or spring rolls, this is THE BEST Spicy Peanut Sauce! A delicious blend of peanut butter and Asian flavors that is finger-licking good.

I’m doing a revamp and making a 2.0 version of my original Spicy Peanut Sauce recipe posted on here.

Just like cars, tvs, cell phones, and even food – we are always striving for a way to make them faster, bigger, easier to use and tastier.

That’s where this recipe comes into play. I wanted to give it an overhaul and see if I could improve on something already delicious. I wanted it to be easier to make, fewer ingredients and give it an updated taste.

Ingredients needed to make Spicy Peanut Sauce

This recipe only requires 7 ingredients. In today’s Foodie pantries, these ingredients are fairly common.

However, if you do not have something like say rice wine vinegar, most grocery stores nowadays carry it.

This recipe only needs the following ingredients:

• Sriracha
• Rice Wine Vinegar
• Sesame Oil
• Low-Sodium Soy Sauce
• Creamy Peanut Butter
• Light Brown Sugar
• Fresh ginger
• warm water – *optional

A few Chef’s Tips

Rice Wine Vinegar

You must use this. You cannot use red wine, apple cider or white distilled vinegar.

Rice wine vinegar is made by fermenting the sugars in the rice into alcohol (like wine) and then the alcohol into acetic acid.

Rice vinegar and Rice Wine Vinegar are the same thing; only the wording is different.

Sesame Oil

You can’t substitute this either. Sesame oil has a distinctive nutty aroma and taste. It complements the peanut butter beautifully in this recipe.

Sriracha

You can be liberal here by how much or little you add. I’ve also played around and used Gochujang in its place and it’s equally as delicious!

Soy Sauce

This absolutely has to be low-sodium.      

Fresh Ginger

It has to be fresh and not the powdered (trust me, I tried). The powder negatively impacts the texture and you don’t quite get that fresh ginger taste.

How to work with Fresh Ginger

Choosing Fresh Ginger

Look for ginger with skin (the thinner the better) that’s smooth, unblemished, and almost translucent.

When you break off the piece you want, the interior should be firm, crisp, and not overly fibrous (making it easier to slice). It should have a fresh, spicy fragrance.

How to peel Fresh Ginger

You want to peel the ginger.  Because of the twist, knobs, and turn, a vegetable peeler may be way too difficult to use.

Try using the edge of a metal spoon to scrape off the skin. It takes a bit more effort than a paring knife or a peeler, but it’s less wasteful—and it lets you maneuver around the knobs and gnarls.

How to use Fresh Ginger

Ginger can be sliced into planks or matchsticks, chopped, grated, puréed, and minced. Keep in mind that, like many spices, ginger’s flavor fades as it cooks. So for more gingery oomph, add some or all of the ginger at the end of cooking.

How to grate Fresh Ginger

Once the ginger is peeled, grate the ginger with a Microplane grater/zester. I absolutely LOVE my Deiss PRO Zester and Grater! It’s truly THE BEST I’ve ever used!

You’ll want to grate against the grain so the mush separates from the tough fibers. All of those little fibers that you’re left with, you can discard.

Storing Fresh Ginger

Probably the most important thing here is how to store it once you’ve peeled it.  For me, the best way is to clean 1 whole fresh piece, cut into sections, peel and then store in a freezer bag in the freezer.  Every time I need a piece or some, I’ll pull it out, grate it/slice it/ chop it and then put the remaining piece back into the bag.

How to make Spicy Peanut Sauce

Now you could add this all to a blender or bowl and use an immersion blender, but a whisk works quite nicely.

1. To a bowl add in the creamy peanut butter.
2. Next, add in the Low Sodium soy sauce.
3. Follow that up with the Rice Wine Vinegar and Sesame oil.

4. Drizzle in the Sriracha (per your heat preference).
5. Add in the freshly grated ginger and light brown sugar.
6. Whisk until creamy.

The mixture is thick. At this point, you can add in 2-4 tablespoon of warm water (while whisking) to thin it out to desired consistency.

*note: when I am adding this to warm noodles I do not add the water as the heat from the warm noodles naturally makes the sauce thinner. Plus, you want the sauce to cling to the noodles and not be a pool at the bottom of your dish.

How to store homemade peanut sauce

Since this sauce contains no dairy, meat or homemade peanut butter, it does not have to be refrigerated.

I keep mine in a mason jar with a lid on the counter for about 2 weeks or so.

*It may separate slightly but that’s not a big deal. Just take a spoon and stir to recombine.

How to make The Best Spicy Peanut Sauce Keto Friendly

• Go with an All-Natural Peanut butter as that is low carb such as Jif Natural Low Sodium Creamy Peanut Butter
• Soy sauce is not keto-friendly but you can go with a Natural Liquid Aminos but you must only use 1/2 the amount that the recipe calls for. So if a recipe calls for 1/4 cup of low sodium soy sauce you must only use 1/8 cup of liquid aminos!
• Brown Sugar – you can go with Truvia but know that you use only 1/2 the amount of Truvia that you would for regular brown sugar.

 

How to Use The Best Spicy Peanut Sauce

This is perfect for salads, noodles, spring/rice rolls, as a dipping sauce or in lettuce wraps!

• Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps
• Thai Peanut Summer Rolls
• Thai Noodles with Chicken in a spicy peanut sauce

or coming up next on the blog…

Chilled Shrimp Wrap with Spicy Peanut Sauce

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