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Blend together simple ingredients to create your own Thai peanut salad dressing. Made with natural peanut butter, tamari, rice vinegar, garlic, agave, crushed red pepper, and water.
Seek bold flavors and always make your salad dressings from scratch
You’ve heard me say it once and I’ll say it again – there is no such thing as a sad salad if you make your own dressing. Maybe you’ve got some wilty kale chillin’ in the back of your produce drawer… toss some fresh AF dressing on top and it’ll make your world a better place.
I’ve been known to make a decent salad dressing from time to time. From this super simple cashew caesar dressing to Asian-inspired sesame ginger sauce, I’d be surprised if you had a hard time finding your perfect style dressing on HYIV.
Making your own salad dressing can be both adventurous and cost-effective. When you use ingredients you already have lying around, you can come up with some pretty creative ideas! And that’s where this Thai peanut salad dressing comes into play. Lately, I’ve been wanting to change up my salad game from typical oil-based and cashew-based dressings. I wanted to eat something different!
Enter: peanut salad dressing
My body has been lacking a good Thai inspired salad dressing and since I had all of the ingredients already in my pantry, I figured why not! This peanut dressing is super versatile and can be served on more than just salads. Consider using it as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or maybe as a sauce to make peanut noodles. Air fry some tofu and use it as a dipping sauce. There are so many options and possibilities!
Peanut salad dressing is super delicious. You can control the sweetness of the sauce by using unsweetened peanut butter and adding as much agave as you please. You can also adjust the saltiness and the tartness with ingredients like rice vinegar and tamari. And lastly, the spice and the thickness which you can adjust by adding more or less red pepper flakes or more or less water.
What ingredients do you need to make peanut salad dressing?
Peanut butter: the first and most important ingredient in peanut salad dressing is the peanut butter. You can use whatever peanut butter you have on hand as long as it’s creamy, but if you’re looking to have more control over the sweetness, seek out an unsweetened and unsalted peanut butter.
Rice vinegar, tamari, and agave: Rice vinegar gives the peanut salad dressing a tart punch while the tamari provides all of the salt. If you have salted peanut butter the amount of tamari you’ll need to use could be a little less than what I suggest in the recipe. And the same goes for the agave. You could also use standard white sugar if you don’t have agave on hand. The type of peanut butter you use will determine how much agave you need, but since I used unsweetened peanut butter, I ended up using two tablespoons.
Garlic and crushed red pepper: For the spices, you’ll need two garlic cloves and a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. These can be adapted to your liking… If you like super spicy things, crank up the red pepper flakes or sub it out for birds-eye chili flakes.
Water: To thin the peanut dressing, you’ll need some water. This allows you to reach your level of desired thickness. The ¾ cup suggested in the recipe will give you decent coverage. If you need it to be a little thinner just add a bit more water.
How do you make peanut salad dressing?
Making peanut salad dressing is really easy. Just dump all of the ingredients into a blender and pulse to combine.
If you don’t own a blender there are still options! Simply crush the garlic or mince as fine as you can get it, and use a whisk to combine all of the ingredients together.
Again, the flavor and consistency of the peanut salad dressing is dependent on the type of peanut butter you use, so taste as you go and if you’re using sweetened or salted peanut butter, adjust for flavor as needed.
This recipe makes two cups of dressing which can be poured on salads, used for a dipping sauce for spring rolls, tossed in noodles, and more.
Serving ideas for peanut salad dressing
Salad is just the beginning with this vegan peanut sauce. Here are some more ideas for serving it!
Make it into ramen: Mix the peanut salad dressing with some no-beef broth to create a savory ramen broth. Serve with noodles, spinach, carrots, and all the fixings.
Use as a dip for spring rolls: I love a good spring roll. There are few things better than the taste of fresh mint with peanut salad dressing.
Make peanut noodles: Pour peanut salad dressing on top of ramen noodles, rice noodles, whatever kind of noodles to make peanut noodles. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes, green onions, and blanched peanuts. YUM.
Fried tofu dip: One of my favorite appetizers at fancy Asian restaurants are the little tofu cubes that have been twice fried and served with peanut sauce. You too, my friend can make these at home. I prefer baking my tofu since it uses less oil. Just lightly dust the tofu cubes with cornstarch and oil then bake at 400 for 40 minutes flipping halfway through. Dip these little guys in peanut sauce!
Thai Peanut Curry: Mix the Thai peanut dressing with some vegetable broth and some red curry paste to create a delicious Massaman curry.
Looking for more Asian food?
If you’re looking for more Asian-American inspired dishes definitely check out some of my other recipes like
- Sesame orange brussels sprouts
- Miso butter rutabagas
- Sesame miso green beans
- Gochujang tofu salad
- Sesame ginger sauce
- Hot and sour soup
Recipe jam
In this segment, I suggest a song for you to listen to while you make peanut salad dressing! You can even stream it right here in your browser. Today’s recipe jam is Isi by Neu!
If you try this recipe, I want to hear about it! Feel free to post your creations to Instagram or Facebook and tag Hell Yes It’s Vegan or #hellyesitsvegan. I look forward to seeing what you make!
Easy Peanut Salad Dressing
Equipment
- measuring cup and spoons
- blender
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter, (Unsweetened and unflavored if you have it on hand. If not, use what you got and adjust the agave and tamari accordingly to taste.)
- ¾ cup water
- 3 Tbsp tamari, (Or soy sauce)
- 2 Tbsp agave
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a blender and combine until smooth and creamy. Serve on salads or use as a dipping sauce!
I love this recipe!!! It is so simple and so good!! followed it as Is. Didn’t have a Blender so i Put it all in a mason jar and shook it up. Next time i may Be laZy and swap fresh garlic For powdered. 🙂 used it as a dressing for asian inspired vegan chicken salad. Although i probably cOuld just eat it by the spoonful.
Thanks for the review Jess – Love the idea of using a mason jar to shake it up 🙂
Sometimes I get lazy and use pre-minced garlic. hah!