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Creamy Thai Vegan Peanut Sauce

April 23, 2022

39 4 minutes read

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This luscious vegan peanut sauce whips up in minutes and tastes just like it came from a Thai restaurant! Perfect for salads or dipping, but also good enough to eat from a spoon!

Cutting board set with cucumber slices, lime slices, ginger, and bowl of Vegan Peanut Sauce.

Peanut sauce (sometimes called satay sauce) is one of those dressings that’s so good, it can take just about any dish you serve it with from just okay to awesome. It’s some seriously delicious stuff!

But not all peanut sauce is vegan. Most recipes call for honey, which most of us know isn’t vegan, or some type of granulated sugar, which depending on where you’re at may be processed using animal bones. So make sure if you go to a Thai restaurant you always ask what the peanut sauce is sweetened with before ordering it.

But the good news is that making your own peanut sauce at home is super easy. Homemade vegan peanut sauce also tastes just as good as the stuff you’d get at a restaurant. Ready to give it a try?

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Ingredients You’ll Need

Peanut butter. Choose a creamy variety of natural peanut butter (the runny kind that separates). Conventional peanut butter has added sweeteners and hydrogenated oils that will mess with the flavor and texture of your peanut sauce, so we’re using natural in order to avoid that. I’m a big fan of Trader Joe’s brand.
Soy sauce. Gluten free tamari or liquid aminos will also work.
Lime juice. Freshly squeezed lime juice is best. Please don’t use the bottled stuff! If you can’t get ahold of some fresh limes, rice vinegar will work as a substitute.
Maple syrup. Other vegan liquid sweeteners like agave nectar or coconut nectar will work just fine as a substitute if needed.
Garlic.
Ginger. If you can get your hands on Thai ginger (known as galangal), use it! But since that can be hard to come by, the recipe simply specifies regular old ginger root.
Sambal oelek or sriracha. Just use one of these if you’d like to add some heat to your vegan peanut sauce. Both can be found in the international section of most supermarkets.
Coconut milk. The recipe calls for full fat coconut milk, but you could use light coconut milk or even water if you’d like to reduce the fat content.
Water. We’re using this to thin our Thai peanut sauce. If you like your sauce super creamy, feel free to add more coconut milk instead.

Tip: Your peanut sauce will be easiest to mix if your ingredients are at room temperature. Try to set them out a bit in advance if possible, or warm them up briefly before you begin.

How It’s Made

The following is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make this dish. Scroll all the way down if you’d like to skip right to the recipe!

Start by whisking the peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, maple syrup, ginger and garlic together in a medium bowl, along with the sriracha or sambal oelek if you’re using them. The mixture will be very thick at this point.

Hand whisking peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, sweetener, ginger and garlic together in a bowl.

Whisk in the coconut milk. I find adding a bit at a time is the easiest way to do this.

Hand pouring coconut milk into a bowl of ingredients for making Vegan Peanut Sauce.

Thin your vegan peanut sauce with some water (or additional coconut milk, if that’s how you roll). Add enough so the sauce is just pourable, but still very thick and creamy.

Hand whisking Vegan Peanut Sauce together in a bowl.

Give your sauce a taste test and adjust any seasonings to your liking.
Serve! I like to top my sauce with some peanuts and chopped scallions.

Bowl of Vegan Peanut Sauce with a spoon in it, cucumber slices in the background.

Leftovers & Storage

Leftover vegan peanut sauce will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for about 5 days, or in the freezer for about 2 months.

How to Serve Thai Peanut Sauce

Use it as a dipping sauce for veggies, drizzle it on a salad, or try serving it with one of these dishes:

Hand dipping a cucumber slice into a bowl of Vegan Peanut Sauce.

Like this recipe? If so, please stop back and leave me a review and rating below if you try it! Also be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter for more recipes like this one!