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Authentic and spicy peanut sauce with spices and rich taste. This homemade peanut sauce recipe goes well with chicken satay. This is the best peanut satay sauce you will find online!
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!
Ingredients
Ingredients For Peanut Sauce
- Vegetable oil
- Coriander powder
- Palm sugar or sugar
- Roasted peanuts
- Salt
- Sweet soy sauce
- Tamarind pulp
- Water
Ingredients For Spice Paste
- Dried red chilies
- Shallots
- Garlic
- Galangal
- Lemongrass
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients.
How To Make This Recipe
Step 1: Crush the peanuts with mortar and pestle or use a food processor to ground the peanuts. Set aside.
Step 2: 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.
Step 3: 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.
Step 4: In a sauce pan, heat the oil on medium heat and add the spice paste.
Step 5: Add the remaining two strips of lemongrass to the spice paste. Cook the spice paste until it becomes aromatic and smell spicy.
Step 6: Add the ground peanuts, water, tamarind juice, salt, sugar, coriander powder and sweet soy sauce. Stir to combine well.
Step 7: 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.
Step 8: Let cool at room temperature and serve the peanut sauce with satay.
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
For the best and authentic flavors, I don’t recommend peanut butter as a substitute.
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.
This recipe is 199 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 for the Spice Paste
- 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.
Video
Notes
- You may use Planters brand unsalted dry roasted peanuts.
- Cook the spice paste until it becomes aromatic and smell spicy.
- The oil and the peanut sauce should separate when it’s done.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
If I don’t have fresh galangal, can I use galangal powder and how much do I have to use?
And for the tamarind pulp can I use paste?
Hi Jake, you can skip it. Yes, you can use tamarind paste.
Hiya Bee,
Thank you so very much for this DELICIOUS recipe. You know, I started to taste it just by reading what the ingredients are. Just one thing please. Can you clarify or elaborate on the following please that appears in the list of instructions: 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3 strips, use only 1 strip at the bottom. When you say “Use only 1 strip at the bottom” what do you mean by this please.
Lemongrass is very long, so you cut them into 3 strips. The bottom strip close to the root is the part with most aroma and fragrance, so you want to use it in the spice paste. The other two strips (the skinnier parts of the lemongrass), use them when you are cooking the peanut sauce.
The best peanut sauce!
I was making a recipe for Salmon satay from stonesoupvirtualcookeryschool.com recently that called for curry powder – not having anything appropriate I went looking for satay spice mix and found your recipe here for the spice paste. It was beautiful and really made the dish – I now intend making the whole chicken satay with peanut sauce recipe you have here. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks Jane.
Hi Rasa Malaysia,
I am enjoying the flavours you have in this recipe, however, even though i followed it with precision, it came out very dry and not very sauce (like yours with the split oil). Any tips on what i can do differently to make it more sauce?
Please add more water to dilute if it’s too thick.
i love chicken satay. im staying here in the philippines my problems is other ingredients is not available in our place like kecap manis tamarind juice . any other replacement to achieve the peanut sauce
Love this recipe!! How long can the Satay sauce keep in the fridge? If I freeze it, how long is it good in the freezer?
Yes you can keep the sauce in the freezer. I would keep it for 4 weeks max or the peanut must taste stale.
Thank you. How about the fridge?
Yes, it’s fine.
How long can i prepare the satay in advance? will the meat deteriote
You mean the sauce or the satay?
Do you use dried coriander leaves or seeds?
Seeds.
it’s really delicious..
thank you very much for sharing the recipe :)