These pad Thai-inspired peanut sweet potato noodles are a vegetarian and gluten-free twist on a classic dish that can help add more veggies to your diet.
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Ok, if we are being nitty-gritty about it, this recipe isn’t exactly a pad thai. I mean, it is certainly inspired by a pad thai, but I took a bit of a leap with the sauce ingredients. A traditional pad thai sauce is more on the sweet side of things and I really went more of the salty and savory route with this particular dish. As opposed to using the more traditional tamarind paste I opted to use salty peanut butter as the base of this recipe to give it a rich and creamy flavor, and as opposed to rice noodles I opted to use fun sweet potato noodles instead!
Although sweet potato noodles might look and sound fancy, they are super simple to prepare and cook. Very similar to zucchini noodles, they can be made by using a spiralizer, peeler, or julienne peeler, in fact, sweet potato noodles have become so popular you can actually find them at many grocery stores in the produce section. (Shh, don’t tell anyone, but that’s actually where I bought mine.) So, if time permits make your own noodles at home for this Sweet Potato Peanut Pad Thai, or when life gets busy, just buy them in the grocery store to help get dinner on the table in a hurry.
Ingredients
- 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and spiralized (or buy them pre-cut)
- 1 red bell pepper, julienned
- 1 cup bean sprouts
- 2 green onions, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup peanuts, roughly chopped, to serve
- Lime wedges, to serve
Sauce:
- 1/3 cup peanut butter, almond butter or cashew butter
- 2 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1-inch fresh ginger, grated
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional)
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup water
Instructions
- Begin by preparing the sauce. In a bowl, whisk together sauce ingredients and set aside. (Depending on the consistency of your peanut butter, your sauce might be thick. It is best to start with 1/4 cup water and add more if needed during the cooking process when you add it to the sweet potato noodles.)
- Peel the sweet potatoes, and create noodles by spiralizing them into long strands. If you don’t have a spiralizer tool you can also cut the sweet potatoes into really thin, long strips.
- In a skillet on medium-high heat, heat oil and then add in sliced bell pepper, bean sprouts, green onion, garlic and allow to cook 2-3 minutes until the bell peppers are tender but not mushy.
- Once the vegetables have softened, add sweet potato noodles and cook for 5-7 minutes, tossing occasionally, or until cooked through.
- While the noodles are cooking (with about 2-3 minutes remaining), add the sauce and stir well to combine. Check the sauce at this point, if you find it is too thick as it cooks with the noodles simply add a couple of tablespoons of water to help thin it out.
- Portion the pad thai to serve and top with chopped peanuts, fresh cilantro, and a lime wedge.
- Enjoy!