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5 Secrets to 20 Minute Dinners!
Tips, tricks, and recipes for dinner in a hurry!
Peanut Sauce Recipe
Peanut sauce is one of the most popular Asian dipping sauces. The sauce goes perfectly with chicken satay or beef satay.
My peanut sauce recipe is 100% homemade and authentic. It’s mildly spicy, made of aromatics, spices and dry roasted peanuts.
The amazing rich taste of this recipe is unmatched. It is the best recipe you’ll find online!
How to Make Peanut Sauce?
This recipe is easy to make from scratch. It calls for the following ingredients:
- Roasted peanuts
- Palm sugar or sugar
- Tamarind
- Dried red chilies
- Garlic
- Shallots
- Galangal
- Lemongrass
The method is a three-step process. First, ground the roasted peanuts. You can use store-bought Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts.
Next, prepare and blend the spice paste.
To make the spicy peanut satay sauce, heat oil and fry the spice paste, then add the ground peanuts and water.
Add tamarind juice, sugar, sweet soy sauce and salt to season the sauce.
The dipping sauce is ready when the oil and the sauce separates.
Asian Peanut Sauce
This sauce is very popular in Southeast Asia; almost every country has its peanut dipping sauce recipe.
There is Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Indonesian versions and so on but the BEST peanut sauce is found in Malaysia.
The recipe I am sharing today is the best of all. The taste is exquisite, rich and complex!
Once you try it, you will never go back to peanut butter sauce or any recipes using peanut butter as the main ingredient.
What Do You Eat with Peanut Sauce?
Peanut sauce is versatile and goes well with a variety of dishes.
Other than satay dipping sauce, you can use it as a salad dressing.
It tastes great on noodles and spring rolls, for examples: Goi Cuon Vietnamese fresh spring rolls and summer rolls.
It’s equally delicious on chicken, tofu, rice cakes and a variety of Asian dishes.
You can also use it in stir fry dishes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Use Peanut Butter Instead of Ground Peanuts
For the best and authentic flavors, I don’t recommend peanut butter as a substitute.
How Do I Store Peanut Sauce?
You can store it in the refrigerator for up to a week. Make sure you store the sauce in a container or in a bowl tightly covered with plastic wraps.
To serve, just reheat the sauce in a microwave for 1 minute.
You can also freeze the sauce in the freezer. To serve, thaw the sauce to room temperature and reheat in a microwave.
How Many Calories per Serving?
This recipe is 231 calories per serving.
What to Serve with This Recipe?
This dipping sauce is best served with chicken satay. You can also use the sauce for the following recipes.
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Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup dry roasted peanuts (unsalted)
- 1 tablespoon tamarind pulps
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar (palm sugar preferred)
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce (Kecap Manis)
Spice Paste:
- 8 dried red chilies (seeded and soaked in warm water)
- 3 cloves garlic (peeled)
- 4 cloves small shallots or pearl onions (peeled)
- 1 stalk lemongrass (cut into 3 strips, use only 1 strip at the bottom)
- 1/2 inch (1cm) galangal (peeled)
Instructions
- Crush the peanuts with mortar and pestle or use a food processor to ground the peanuts. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, add the tamarind pulps plus 1/4 cup warm water. Set aside for 15 mins. Squeeze and extract the juice from the tamarind pulps and discard. Keep the tamarind juice.
- Chop the Spice Paste ingredients coarsely, transfer to a food processor and blend until very fine. Add a few tablespoons of water to help blending.
- In a sauce pan, heat the oil on medium heat and add the spice paste.
- Add the remaining two strips of lemongrass to the spice paste. Cook the spice paste until it becomes aromatic and smell spicy.
- Add the ground peanuts, water, tamarind juice, salt, sugar, coriander powder and sweet soy sauce. Stir to combine well.
- Turn the heat to medium-low heat, stir continuously for about 5-10 minutes or until the peanut sauce thickens to your desired consistency. The oil and the peanut sauce should separate when it's done.
- Let cool at room temperature and serve the peanut sauce with satay.
Notes
Nutrition
Hi Bee, I really want to make your peanut sauce but I can’t find shallots, tamarinds and galangal. What can I substitute these with? If I leave them out, would I get a vey different tasting sauce ? Please advise, thanks very much!
Yes, if you can’t find them, then no point making, especially tamarinds.
Oh no!! But I really want to make this peanut sauce!! Its sounds mouth-watering!! Can you please share another peanut sauce recipe that calls for fewer ingredients?
https://rasamalaysia.com/thai-peanut-sauce/
You can buy all the ingredients on Amazon that’s what I had to do
I have traveled all around Asia and so far, Malaysian peanut sauce is by far my favorite. I was first introduced to this style of peanut sauce at a Singaporean restaurant I would eat at while living in Japan called, “Makan-Makan.” I was there all the time because I could never get enough of the peanut sauce. When I moved back to the U.S. it really made me sad because I never thought I would have it ever again, but this sauce is identical and it taste so amazing. Thank you for the recipe. It makes me so happy.
Hi Jonah, yes, Malaysian peanut sauce is the best!
What kind of chilis do you use?
Dried chili arbol.
This IS the best peanut satay sauce you will find online!
thank you
:)
Hi Julianne, I agree!
What is best to substitute of galangal? Can I opt out? Any idea where I can buy this in California?
Opt out.
I’ve made this peanut sauce 3 times without chilli so the kids can have it and it tastes great.
However, the oil never separates in my sauce and I never get that nice red colour. Am I doing something wrong or is it because I don’t add chilli?
You need to cook the spice paste until the oil separates. Once separated the color would be nicer.
Hello,
What is a good substitute for peanuts in this recipe?
Cashew nuts, macadamia nuts?
Hello ,
I’m dying to try this but i am wondering about the dry roasted peanuts. I’m looking at a bottle of Planters dry roasted peanuts and its not simply peanuts. They’ve added sea salt, celery, dried onion, dried garlic, salt, paprika…… They can’t keep it simple. I realize these additional ingredients are probably minimal but I’m thinking it will change the taste we are striving for. Am I correct?
It’s fine I used Planters roasted peanuts and there was no issue. If you want, you can rinse them.
Perfect! Thank you! I will try : )
Thank you for the chicken satay & sauce recipes
Awesome thanks for trying.
My whole family loved this peanut sauce. It does take some effort to make though. Is it possible to freeze this peanut sauce, if I make a big batch?
Yes, you can. I freeze mine, too. :)
Hi Bee,
Can Tamarind PASTE, rather than PULP be used and if so, how many grams of paste please?
Thanks!
Yes it’s fine. Just use per the recipe.
Hi
So I made the peanut sauce. Waited for the oil to separate. It was very tasty. But the consistency was more pasty than a sauce. Where do you think I went wrong?
P.s made the chicken satay. They were delicious
Just add more water.
Would that be 2 heaped tablespoons of tamarind paste in that case? Thankyou
Not really, just add it to taste. Try with 1 tablespoon first.