This peanut sauce recipe makes a salty, sweet & spicy dip and dressing for all things Asian. It's a 5-minute peanut butter sauce made with pantry staples and customizable for even more authentic Thai peanut sauce flavors.
Easy Peanut Sauce
There's no secret formula to a good peanut sauce recipe. In fact, there are endless ingredient combinations, so it's really about loosely following a recipe and customizing to your liking. It's so easy too! It's made with a handful of everyday pantry staples whisked together to make one of the best sauces in your collection!
Peanut Sauce Ingredients
- natural peanut butter
- soy sauce or gluten-free tamari
- unseasoned rice vinegar or lime juice
- maple syrup
- ginger
- garlic
- sriracha, or chili garlic paste, or cayenne pepper
- water
* see full recipe below
What to eat with peanut sauce
- Thai Peanut Zucchini Noodles
- Veggie Quinoa Banh Mi Bowl
- Turmeric Chickpea Buddha Bowl Recipe
- Thai spring rolls (also called summer rolls)
- Asian salad
- dumplings or gyoza
- lettuce wraps
- stir fry
- chicken satay
- vegetable crudité
What other sauce, besides ranch dressing, has this many uses?!
How to make peanut sauce
- Place soy sauce, grated ginger, rice vinegar, maple syrup, finely grated garlic, sriracha (or any chili flavor), and peanut butter in a bowl. Feel free to substitute your favorite gluten-free soy sauce.
- Whisk ingredients together until well-combined.
- Add small amounts of water and continue whisking until you reach your desired consistency.
Pro tip: It's way too easy to make this sauce way too watery. So, be diligent about adding only "small" amounts of water to reach the right consistency.
Authentic Thai peanut sauce
This recipe is mildly flavored for a Thai dipping sauce. To give it stronger, more distinct Thai flavors, start by substituting coconut milk for water in this recipe. Then add any of the following ingredients in small amounts:
- lime juice
- chili garlic sauce
- fish sauce
- lemongrass paste
- tamarind paste
- galangal
- Thai red curry paste
- sesame oil
It's fun to experiment with these ingredients. if you overuse any of them, it can quickly become not delicious and difficult to correct, so go easy!
How to thicken peanut sauce
Oh snap! You went and made your sauce too thin, did ya? We've all been there. If this happens, simply whisk in more peanut butter to adjust it.
You can even use peanut butter powder to make the adjustment...it acts like flour, which is very cool! It's spendy...because it doesn't include peanut oil. It has a million uses, just like peanut butter.
Does Thai dipping sauce have dairy?
This sauce is naturally vegan and naturally dairy-free! There's no need to add animal products to it because it's scrumptious on its own.
Next to hummus, I can't think of a more popular plant-based condiment that's so universal to non-vegans everywhere!
Recommended Tools
- microplane (to finely grate ginger and garlic)
- small mixing bowl
- fork or whisk
- airtight storage container
Grab these easy Asian recipes
- Pickled Carrots and Daikon
- Thai Coconut Soup
- Vegan Thai Coconut Vegetable Curry
- Teriyaki Chicken Lettuce Wraps
- Kale Sesame Noodles
- Thai Cucumber Salad
- Asian Slaw Quinoa Salad
- Banh Mi Buddha Bowl
Peanut Sauce [Thai Peanut Sauce]
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup Natural Peanut Butter unsweetened
- 1 Tbsp Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce or Tamari (for gluten free)
- 1 Tbsp Unseasoned Rice Vinegar or lime juice
- 1 Tbsp Maple Syrup
- 1 tsp Ginger finely grated
- 1 clove Garlic finely grated
- 1 tsp Sriracha or chili garlic paste, or pinch cayenne
- Water as needed to adjust consistency
Recipe Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together PEANUT BUTTER, SOY SAUCE, RICE VINEGAR, MAPLE SYRUP, GINGER, GARLIC, and SRIRACHA until well-combined.
- Slowly pour in small amounts of WATER and continue whisking until sauce reaches desired consistency.
NOTE: If the sauce is too thick for your liking, add a little water to thin it out. If it's too thin, add a little peanut butter to thicken it.
RECIPE NOTES
- coconut milk
- lime juice
- chili garlic sauce
- fish sauce [not vegan]
- lemongrass paste
- tamarind paste
- galangal
- Thai red curry paste
Nutrition
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Substituted the one tablespoon of soy sauce with one tablespoon of fish sauce and added a whole tablespoon of Siracha. Really gave it a kick with umami!
Awesome...so glad you enjoyed it! I like fish sauce in it too, but I kept it vegan knowing it could be added. Thanks for the review! 🙂
Made peanut soba noodles with this and it tasted so good! Even the picky eaters in my house loved it.
We will be eating this a lot more.
Yay! I'm so glad to hear it, Natasja! This peanut sauce really goes well on a lot of things. Glad your family is enjoying it...thanks for letting me know! 😍
Tastes great! How long would this last stored in the refrigerator? I'd love to whip up a large batch and set aside for future use.
Thanks K! I've had mine up to a week or 10 days easily...maybe even more, but mine never lasts that long lol. Glad you're enjoying the recipe 🙂
Delicious sauce! I used it as a dipping sauce for dumplings. I had to use double the amount of water though for it to have a nice consistency.
Yay, so glad you enjoyed it! And yes, the water can easily be adjusted to change consistency. Glad you found your sweet spot 🙂
I tried two other recipes before yours. Both batches went down the garbage disposal. Yours was absolutely perfect! It was exactly the flavors that I was looking for! Thank you so much. These made my lettuce wraps scrumptious!!
Wow PJ! So glad you enjoyed this recipe 🙂 Thanks for the kind words...makes my day!
Delicious! Thank you! Will use for my spring rolls, pasta, stir fry, and so much more .
Woohoo! Love hearing that...thanks for the feedback, Glenda! 🙂
Please add 5 stars to my review!
Thanks Sheri, done!
My favorite restaurant features a Buddha bowl with luscious peanut sauce.
My budget, unfortunately, doesn’t accommodate dining in as frequently as I’d like, which put me on the hunt for a comparable homemade alternative.
I’ve tried a lot but your recipe hits the nail on the head!
I particularly appreciate that it’s not overly sweet.
The recipe is flavorful as given but adding any of the suggested, optional ingredients allows you to customize to taste. Made enough for 3 generous servings.
Great job!
Thanks Sheri! Well this makes my day...and I too love peanut sauce that's isn't too sweet. This recipe is so flexible for someone to add sweetness, or spice, or more traditional ingredients. Thanks again for your feedback 🙂
I've never added cayenne pepper to my pb sauce before. I'll have to try that. I almost always have some in my fridge since it goes with everything! It is a staple for us! Especially when making stir frys!
Awesome and thanks! Yeah the cayenne is a nice way to not add extra salt and/or fat (via Sriracha, chili paste, or chili oil)...even though I love all of those things 😉
I love that this is dairy free! And that ginger in there is genius. I need this for spring rolls, egg rolls, and basically everything worth dipping! LOL. Looks creamy and flavorful!
Thanks Christina! The ginger totally makes it, in my book 😉 Hope you try it and love it!
Ditto on the best Asian sauce ever, seriously. It's so easy to make and those photos should give anyone the confidence to try to make this sauce if they have never done it before. Saving this for later, yours looks amazing.
Thanks so much Tina! Love hearing that...hope you love it 🙂
THanks for the wonderful suggestions on what to use this sauce for. I actually can't imagine anything it wouldn't be good on. A seriously great sauce...and the tip about adding the water sparingly was just what we needed!
Thanks Debra! I'm with you on loving this sauce on everything 🙂
I could often just eat this stuff with a SPOON. I lovelovelove PB mixed with a bit of heat, then brought to a savory dish. This really is the perfect kind of dip for summer rolls. I can never get enough of those refreshing little things! I usually use Sriracha sauce or sambal oelek for the heat, and honey for the sweet.
Thanks Dana! Yep, I love those options for the heat too. So many options, so little time 😉
Oooooh YES! We've been eating raw veggies as snacks this month and I'm needing a new way to make them exciting. This would be so awesome to dip them into! YUM!
Thanks Trish! Yep, it's the perfect raw veggie dip! 😉
I LOVE the peanut sauce I get with my Thai food and I've been wondering how to make it! And it turns out that I have everything in the house needed to make it. Bonus! Now to make some satay to go with it...
Yay Annemarie! Hope you love this one! 🙂
Oh man I wish I had seen this sooner! Last week I had some delicious spring rolls from a local Thai restaurant. The spring rolls themselves were great, but omg that peanut sauce was SO disappointing!! It ruined the rolls. If only I had this recipe - I could have whipped up a WAY better sauce for them! Pinning to make sure I always have access to it in case I'm stuck with bad peanut sauce again!
Oh Tracy, this is so funny and not funny, b/c it happens so easily...a great thing ruined. I hope you love this recipe!
Hooray for a simple, adaptable peanut sauce that's made with simple ingredients! I frequently find that sauces like these tend to be made by just mashing together a couple of other sauces, and at that point I don't know why you wouldn't just buy a peanut sauce. But this is great - it's all stuff I've got, and it's got a great final texture, and plenty of room to adapt to taste. I know that I'd personally include fish sauce given that I'm not aiming for vegan, but it is nonetheless really nice to have the option to keep it meat-free, given how tricky that tends to be with Southeast Asian food. Cheers!
Thanks Sean! Yes, adding fish sauce makes it distinctively more Thai...and I love it like that too 🙂 Glad you notice how simple the ingredients are. Hope you love this one!
We've gotten into this huge Oriental food kick. I'm craving spring rolls, Thai noodles, etc. The sauce would certainly be handy to have on hand whenever we get the urge to make our Asian dishes. Thank you!! I think we'll do Thai tonight.
Yes! This sauce is perfect for anyone on that kick 🙂 Thanks and hope you love it!
This looks so good. I can just imagine the uses already. Perfect way to spice up rice, veggies and meat too. Homemade is best, and this proves it.
Thanks so much Gloria! Love hearing that...and you're right, it IS so versatile 😉
I love peanut sauce but never thought of making it at home, this will be my new favorite with lots of hot sauce, thanks!
Thanks Patty! It's so easy...you'll love it! 🙂
Asian food has to be my favourite so I'll definitely be making this as there are so many dishes that go with a peanut sauce.
Thanks Amanda! I'm right there with you 🙂
I have never had a peanut sauce! I have to give this a try, because it's so easy! And delicious!
Thanks Beth! Hope it becomes your new fav! 🙂
I absolutely love peanut sauce and this recipe looks like perfection!! That's so many things this would be delicious on... And I'd definitely be using it as a dressing on ALL my salads!
Thanks so much, Sues! This is the ultimate salad dressing 🙂
This is perfect for my Thai dishes! Yum!
Thanks Sharon! Hope you love it 🙂
This sounds like it will go with so many of my favourites! We are big lovers of homemade Asian cuisine in our house so this will be going on my list of must-makes.
Love hearing that, Cliona! We make lots of Asian too 🙂 Thanks and hope you love it!
Love peanut sauce! This looks so tasty!
Thanks Tisha! 🙂
Homemade is always better; and it's so easy to make! Looks delicious! Very versatile too!
Thanks so much Taylor! It's so versatile 🙂
This Peanut Sauce would be perfect on a lot of great dishes! Pinned for later!
Awesome! Thanks Shanika 🙂
Peanut sauce is one of my favorites, and the whole family loves chicken satay - it's a staple in the summer. Yours sounds tasty without being too complex too.
Thanks Caroline! Yep, no need to complicate this one 🙂