Chicken in Thai Peanut Sauce

Let me tell y’all about the time I ground my own peanut butter in a food processor because the internet told me to.

Back in the Daring Cooks days (if you’re too young for Daring Cooks: it was a cooking club where a host picked a monthly challenge, everybody made it, and we all posted our results on the same day; it was blogging’s group-project era, and I loved it), there was a nut-butter challenge. Make your own nut butter from scratch, any nut you like, then build a savory dish around it. Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies (now shuttered) hosted it, and I owe them for this recipe, because I’m still making it a decade and a half later.

I picked peanuts. Dumped them in the food processor and let it run until they went from gravel to sand to, eventually, actual peanut butter. (There’s a stage in the middle where you’re certain you’ve wrecked everything and the machine is just going to make peanut dust forever; keep going, it turns. It always turns.) Then I stirred that warm, fresh peanut butter into a Thai-style sauce, spooned it over rice, and it was so good I never stopped making it.

Now, some honesty, because that’s the whole brand around here. This is not an authentic Thai recipe, and I’m not going to pretend it is. For one thing, I season the chicken with garam masala, which is an Indian blend that has no business in a Thai kitchen and every business in mine, because it tastes fantastic right here. For another, I use red curry paste from a jar and, these days, natural peanut butter from a jar too. Grinding your own peanut butter is a wonderful thing to learn to do once. I am not doing it on a Tuesday night, and neither are you, and that’s fine; the technique stays with you even when the shortcut wins.

Daring Cooks is long gone now, which makes me a little wistful every time I think about it. But the recipe stayed. That’s the quiet good news about learning to cook a thing: the club can fold and the blog can move three times, and what you learned is still right there in your hands.

Here’s how I make it.

Notes

Curry Paste. Heat lives in the red curry paste, and paste brands vary wildly; start low, taste, and add more. You can always build heat, you can’t take it back out.

Peanut Butter. Use natural peanut butter, the just-peanuts kind. Sweetened PB turns the whole thing cloying, and then you’ve got dessert on rice.

Coconut milk gives the sauce its body; a spoonful of coconut cream makes it plush. If you don’t have the cream, skip it, nobody will file a complaint.

Leftovers. It’s better the next day, like most saucy things. It thickens in the fridge; loosen it with a splash of water when you reheat. And in this house, the cilantro is not a garnish, it’s a requirement.

Print Recipe

Chicken in Thai-Inspired Peanut Sauce

Seared chicken simmered in a glossy coconut-peanut sauce, spooned over jasmine rice. A Daring Cooks throwback that has earned permanent weeknight status. Not authentic; completely delicious.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time25 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Servings: 4 servings

Ingredients

For the Chicken

• 1½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 to 2 tsp garam masala Penzeys Punjabi Style if you have it
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp avocado oil for searing

For the Sauce

• 2 to 3 Tbsp Thai red curry paste
• 14 oz coconut milk one can
• ¼ cup coconut cream optional, for richness
• ⅓ to ½ cup natural peanut butter just peanuts
• 1 to 2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar or honey optional
• Juice of ½ to 1 lime

To Serve

• Cooked jasmine rice
• Chopped fresh cilantro not optional in this house

Instructions

• Season and sear. Toss the chicken with garam masala and salt. Heat the oil in cast iron over medium-high and sear the chicken in a single layer, in batches, until browned on the outside (it doesn’t need to cook through; it finishes in the sauce). Remove to a plate.
  1½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, 1 to 2 tsp garam masala, ½ tsp salt, 1 Tbsp avocado oil
• Build the sauce. Lower the heat to medium. Add the curry paste to the pan and stir about a minute, until fragrant. Whisk in the coconut milk (and cream, if using), peanut butter, and fish sauce until smooth and glossy. Simmer gently a few minutes to marry.
  2 to 3 Tbsp Thai red curry paste, 14 oz coconut milk, ⅓ to ½ cup natural peanut butter, 1 to 2 Tbsp fish sauce, 1 Tbsp brown sugar or honey
• Simmer it together. Return the chicken and any juices to the pan. Simmer 8 to 12 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Stir in lime juice; thin with a splash of water if it’s too thick. Taste and adjust salt, heat, and lime.
  Juice of ½ to 1 lime
• Serve over jasmine rice, showered with cilantro.
  Cooked jasmine rice, Chopped fresh cilantro

Notes

• Heat depends entirely on your curry paste; start low and build.
• Natural, unsweetened peanut butter only. Sweetened PB makes it cloying.
• Better the next day. It thickens in the fridge; loosen with water when reheating.

P.S. If your peanut butter seizes into a stubborn ball while the sauce simmers, whisk in a splash of hot water and it’ll come back. Do not panic and start over like I did in roughly 2010.

P.P.S. Garam masala in a Thai peanut sauce is the sort of thing that would get me gently yelled at by exactly one person on the internet, and I have made my peace with them.

P.P.P.S. Pour one out for Daring Cooks. We had a good run, folks.