Frequently asked questions
What is pad thai sauce made of?
For this shrimp pad thai recipe, fish sauce is combined with light brown sugar, fresh lime juice, and thinly sliced Thai chiles. It gets added to the pan last, coating all of the other ingredients as everything is stir-fried together.
Is pad thai always spicy?
While pad thai doesn’t contain any actual spices, it does include fresh chiles. Thai bird’s eye chiles definitely pack the heat — they’re roughly twice as hot as cayenne peppers. For a milder pad thai, you can remove the pith and seeds from the pepper before slicing and/or use less chile altogether.
Note from the Food and Wine Test Kitchen
Of course we love pad thai for its incredible array of flavors and textures, but this dish has something else pretty awesome going for it: The whole shebang cooks up in just one pan! Yes, you’ll need to soak the noodles beforehand, and sure, the sauce is first stirred together in a small bowl, but after that, there are less than 15 minutes of actual cooking, all in a single skillet.
Suggested pairing
Ripe, lime-scented Pinot Gris from Oregon.