An easy Thai peanut sauce for chicken satay, beef satay, or even noodles. You can make this easy peanut sauce mild or spicy per your taste. This a sugar-free and ketogenic recipe, but follow the tips for subs.
There are a million different recipes for Thai or Vietnamese peanut sauce and they are all good. Some add add soy sauce, ginger, or garlic; others add vinegar, fish sauce or lime; still others call for chicken broth, coconut milk, or even applesauce. For sweeteners I’ve seen recipes call for anything from white sugar, brown sugar, coconut sugar, and honey.
How to make satay sauce or peanut dipping sauce?
You name a combination of ingredients and I have probably used it in an easy peanut sauce. At the moment, I enjoy using smooth peanut butter, coconut milk, garlic chile sauce, and Thai red curry paste. These ingredients make for a subtly spiced peanut sauce with a great depth of flavor.
Coconut milk adds a nice mellow-sweet flavor and great mouth feel. Garlic chile sauce has a nice chile and garlic flavor with a little bit of heat. Red curry paste is full of complex flavors like kaffir lime leaf and galanga.
To get the best flavor heat the curry paste in a pan with some oil until it’s fragrant. It really makes a difference. I buy a variety of Thai curry pastes at my local Asian market or on Amazon. My favorites are Mae Ploy Yellow, Red, Panang and Massaman curry pastes. They're perfect for making an impromptu curry during the week and keep in the fridge forever.
This is an easy peanut sauce recipe for chicken satay or even beef satay. The flavors work well for both. I’ve even used leftover sauce on regular sauteed chicken breasts and grilled pork tenderloin, not to mention zucchini noodles. It literally tastes good on almost anything.
Peanut sauce variations and how to make it your own!
- Use almond butter, cashew butter, or macadamia nut butter instead of peanut butter
- Add sesame oil or toasted ground sesame seeds to make sesame noodles.
- Sweeten with applesauce, honey, brown sugar, white sugar or coconut sugar.
- Give it some umami with tamari soy sauce or Fish sauce.
- Add a little acid with cider vinegar, white vinegar, lemon juice, or lime juice.
- Give it some flavor with minced garlic, ginger, or both.
- Spice it up with cayenne, Siracha, chile garlic paste, jalapenos or serranos.
- Thin it out with coconut milk or chicken broth.
- Garnish with crushed peanuts, cashews, green onions, cayenne pepper, or cilantro.
Each serving of this easy Peanut Sauce has 3 net carbs.
[This post and recipe may contain affiliate links.]
Easy Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
- ¼ cup peanut butter smooth (or almond butter)
- ⅓ cup full fat coconut milk from a can
- 1-2 teaspoon chile garlic sauce (found in Asian section of grocery)
- 1 tablespoon Low carb brown sugar or Swerve ( white, brown, coconut sugar, or honey)
- 1 teaspoon Tamari soy sauce (or coconut aminos)
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil (or sesame oil, or olive oil)
- ½ teaspoon Thai Red Curry Paste
Instructions
- In a smallish microwave safe bowl, gently warm the peanut butter. Whisk in the chile garlic sauce, sweetener of your choice, and Tamari soy sauce.
- Put a small pan over medium heat and warm the oil. Add the Thai red curry paste and cook until very fragrant. Scrape the oil and curry paste into the bowl with the peanut butter and whisk to combine.
- Slowly add the coconut milk to the peanut butter mixture while stirring with a whisk. Taste and adjust seasonings. (If it doesn't "pop" add a little more sweetener or a squeeze of lime or lemon juice. You can also add a little fish sauce or salt.) Serve room temperature or slightly warmed.
- Makes just over ½ a cup, serving 4, at just over 2 tablespoons per serving. Refrigerate up to 5 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Chicken Satay
Nic
My daughter (15) on the keto diet for medical reasons LOVED this. I make low carb salad rolls and she was thrilled to have this.
Robin
So excited to try this! I have all the ingredients here and we haven’t had peanut sauce in a very long time. I’m going to put it on broccoli. Yum! Thank you so much!
Jennifer Theriot
DELISH!
V
This taste great! I’m Thai and I find this recipe very close to what I usually make, just that usual one is not so keto-friendly!
Have you tried this recipe with all natural peanut butter? It’ll turn out with even better consistency. I use Mae Sri curry paste for mine. Simmer all the ingredients for 10-15 also help coconut milk yield its natural oil and create that layer on top.
Kim Hardesty
Hi V. Yes! I have tried it with natural peanut butter and you are right, it is even better. Thanks for the tip about simmering the sauce. Have a nice weekend. -Kim
Phyllis
this tastes good but the directions go all over the place. Ingredients are not added in the order in which they are listed, Recipe should be done in the order in which the ingredients are listed. I had to redo the order, this took too much jumping around as it was written
Kim Hardesty
Hi Phyllis. I shared this recipe early in my blogging days (about 4 years ago). I will take your comments under advisement and take a look at the recipe. Thank you so much for your feedback. Have a nice week. -Kim
Cyndie Gawain
Excellent and easy to make. I used it on spring rolls
Dee Gee
Tasted GREAT! Thanks. Need something i could quickly whip up and this worked perfectly.
Marnie Claywell
This is not only easy but very yummy! My friends were impressed! Thank you!
Sara
This was soooooo good!!! Definitely making again!
L
Hi! In some recipes I've noticed, people say canned coconut milk, but they actually mean only the cream on top, and not to mix it with the clear liquid. Is that the case here, or do you mean the actual milk, as in the cream and the liquid mixed together? It just gets confusing because people always mean dofferent things, so I wanted to be sire before I try it out
Kim
Great question. Shake the can and use the cream and water mixed together. I hope you enjoy the recipe. -Kim
Kellie
You don't mention the serving size in the nutrition section. It is 1 TBLSP?
Kim
Hi Kellie. If you look at the last of the directions, it tells how much per person. Thanks. -Kim
Matt
This is one of my all time favorite sauces, thanks so much for this!
Kim
IKR? It tastes great on almost everything. Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. Have a great weekend. -Kim
Kirsten
Hi! I wanted to say thank you for the links to some of your ingredients. ( Like the Thai Red Curry Paste). I looked at the ingredients and it said it had shrimp in it! I could have seriously hurt or maybe killed someone that has a seafood allergy! It also saved me shlepping to the store and finding out I made a trip for an unusable ingredient. Bless you.
IF I am able to find a red paste that doesn't include shellfish I will be making this sauce).
If I leave it out, will it affect the taste so much it isn't worth it?
Sorry for all the questions, I am the only one in my family that can eat shellfish and also have an asbestos stomach.
Kim
Hi Kristen. I'm glad you were able to read the ingredients before you purchased! The Thai Red Curry Paste has some wonderful ingredients that provide a great taste. You can try adding just a little minced garlic and minced ginger instead (check out the post on peanut sauce for all of the subs you can try). There are so many ways you can flavor a peanut sauce. There is also a pin with all of the options so you can have them handy. Let me know if you have any more questions. -Kim