Spicy Peanut Sauce

This spicy peanut butter sauce goes great with Asian dishes like noodle bowls and tofu dishes, or as a dipping sauce for lettuce wraps or Asian dumplings. Yum!

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About this Spicy Peanut Sauce

Have you ever gone out for Asian food and had that great spicy peanut sauce that comes with sushi, lettuce wraps, or those noodle dishes? And then you go home and think that making your own peanut sauce is probably too hard. Think again. Get out a mixing bowl and prepare to impress yourself and anyone lucky enough to drop by for dinner.

Ingredients

You’ll need the items shown in the picture below. If you don’t have these items in your pantry, everything is easy to find at most any grocery store. I recommend using toasted sesame oil instead of plain sesame oil. This article describes how to use toasted sesame oil and how it’s different from the regular kind.

Expert Tips

• Use smooth peanut butter, preferably one that is all-natural with no added sugars or salt.
• If you’re buying Sriracha sauce for the first time, read the labels. I found a brand in our store that contained high fructose corn syrup. Look for a brand that doesn’t have that ingredient.
• Instead of grating fresh ginger, use ginger that is either minced and found in jars or the tube variety. These options taste great and reduce your time and hassle.
• You can use garlic in jars or tubes also. If you don’t have a garlic press, this is a good option.
• If you adhere to a gluten-free diet, use tamari instead of soy sauce.
• To make this recipe vegan, substitute agave nectar or maple syrup for honey.

Making Spicy Peanut Sauce

This all happens in one mixing bowl. Put the peanut butter in the bowl and stir in the ginger, garlic, toasted sesame oil, honey, and Sriracha sauce. Then add the rice vinegar, low-sodium soy sauce, and lime juice. Mix it all with a wire whisk until it’s creamy. Those red flecks are the Sriracha sauce. If you like things really spicy, add more of that.

That’s all there is to it! Now you have your very own delicious spicy peanut sauce. It’s the perfect sauce for noodle bowls and it goes well with recipes that include sesame baked tofu or Asian-inspired bowls like our soba noodles and zoodles with tofu bowl.

This peanut sauce keeps in the refrigerator for days. So if you make it ahead of time or if you have leftovers, put it in a container for later use. (I don’t really know how long it keeps because it’s never lasted more than three days in our house.) If you refrigerate the sauce, you might need to thin it before using it. To thin it, transfer about two tablespoons of sauce per serving into a small bowl and add a splash of hot water, mixing constantly. Add more water to achieve the desired consistency. If you prefer, you can use coconut milk to thin it instead of water.

Other Recipes you might like

• Sesame Ginger Dressing
• Soba Noodles and Zoodles with Tofu
• Shrimp with Soba Noodles