Quick and easy Pad Thai recipe

pad thai recipe

An easy Pad Thai recipe: A favourite go-to student meal, especially for a rushed lunch.

It’s extremely quick and simple to make, and is also a good way to stretch out a tiny bit of chicken into a meal.

Some of the ingredients may not be in your regular supermarket, depending on your part of the country; it is well worth picking up a bottle each of fish sauce and oyster sauce from an Oriental supermarket. They shouldn’t cost more than around a pound each, but the flavour is worth it.

Submitter Zoe says: “I actually picked up this recipe when I took a cooking course in Thailand; I sort of fell in love with the place, so I guess it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. It’s still ridiculously delicious, and possibly the most savoury and satisfying thing you can possibly eat. Enjoy.”

Ingredients

To make 1 serving

  • Rice noodles (try not to get them too thin, look for those labelled "rice stick" if you can)
  • Chicken cut into thin strips, uncooked or cooked is fine.
  • Oyster sauce
  • A couple of spring onions, sliced finely
  • Egg 1
  • 1 chilli, finely chopped
  • TofuOptional
  • Any stir-fry-able veg that is left in your fridgeE.g. green beans

How to make Pad Thai:

  1. Soak as many rice noodles as you want in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes, whilst you prepare the other ingredients
  2. Heat a little oil in a large-based pan; a wok is ideal, but a frying pan or even a large saucepan is good.
  3. When the oil is hot, add the chicken, spring onion, chilli and vegetables (plus tofu if using) . Stir fry for a couple of minutes until the chicken goes slightly brown.
  4. Add the softened noodles, then add about a dessert spoon each of oyster and fish sauce to the pan.
  5. Make a space in the pan, and crack in the egg, then stir vigorously to coat everything in the pan.
  6. Plate up and enjoy.

Pad Thai Tips

– Open the window when cooking, as the fish sauce can make your kitchen smell a bit funky. Also, student kitchens tend to have smoke alarms from hell, that are set off at the slightest hint of steam, and refuse to turn off for at least 5 years.

– If your vegetables are quite chunky (e.g. broccoli), then it pays to cook them a little first as the chicken will cook very quickly. Either chuck them in the microwave for a minute before stir-frying, or copy me and put them in a bamboo steamer to add at the end of cooking.