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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
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
I have peanut allergy. Can I substitute the roasted peanut with roasted macadamia or roasted hazelnut?
You can try, I think it should be fine.
Wow. This is really a flavorful take on a satay sauce. I love the use of tamarind here, and the adherence to traditional ingredients. Thank you for sharing!
in my trader joe they have a machine and the peanuts you make your peanut paste can i used that
I am not familiar with the machine you talked about.
Looking forward to making this. What type of dried red chilies should I use? I have many different types and the store has even more.
How do I substitute the tamarind pulp and its juice if I only have this tamarind concentrate (the texture is very syrupy, NOT a paste): https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I9P242U/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I made it in the thermomix and it was delicious. My husband and I finished it in one seating! Thanks for the great recipe. I sub galangal with ginger and tamarind with tamarind paste. I also used an entire disc of palm sugar because breaking it to measure would be too tedious, and a tablespoon of sugar. (Just thought it would be a helpful tip for others :) )
Thank.
hi,
i tried this twice, turn our great but doesnt seem to refrigerate well, my second attempt i added more water but the issue persist. tia
Tumeric doesn’t go with this recipe ?
Why don’t you try?
I can’t find Tamarind. Can I opt out this ingredient? Thanks
You can use vinegar for the sour taste.
Hi there
I am just cooking the peanut sauce now and I have been stirring it for about 45 mins and the oil doesnt seem to separate – what do I do or did I do something wrong or do I keep stirring? Thanks
If it doesn’t separate then just continue to the next step.
Hello!
Can you freeze the peanut sauce?
Thank you!