Like for an original Pad Thai, I use fresh vegetables and rice noodles. This is a simplified recipe without the numerous special sauces and spices that you would need for an original Pad Thai. However, my simplified and easy Pad Thai has sweet, slightly spicy, sour and salty ingredients for the typical, aromatic Pad Thai taste.
Pad Thai – vegan and easy
The national dish of Thailand is becoming more and more popular – and rightly so. The fresh vegetables, the crispy fried tofu and the aromatic sauce are wholesome and taste as good as holidays under palm trees. For my easy vegan Pad Thai, I use ingredients that are used regularly in vegan cooking and that you can buy anywhere. Kala Namak, which is also called sulfur salt or black salt, is particularly recommended as a basic spice. If you have, for example, rice vinegar or sambal oelek at home anyway, you can of course also use it in this recipe.
Kala Namak
The special salt is mined in the Himalayas vicinity and has a pink to greyish color. It is often used instead of normal salt in vegan cuisine because of its unique taste. Kala Namak adds flavor to dishes because of its mineral composition. Kala Namak and tofu together is often referred to as vegan egg. The combination of Kala Namak and tofu is equally perfect to make scrambled tofu, otherwise known as scrambled egg.
When you replace ordinary sea salt with Kala Namak (or the other way around), do it step-by-step. Kala Namak is less salty than ordinary sea salt. By the way: To taste dishes during preparation and before serving is one of the secrets of palatable dishes!
Easy Vegan Pad Thai
Ingredients
For the vegan egg:
- 3 Tbsp oil for frying ie peanut oil
- 250 g tofu
- 2 pinches Kurkuma powder
- 1-3 pinches Kala Namak/ sulfur salt
Vegetables:
- 2 carrots
- ½ red pepper
- 2 spring onions
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 fresh ginger size of thumb width
Sauce:
- 1,5 dl vegetable broth
- 2 Tbsp maple syrup alternatively: 1,5 Tbsp agave syrup
- 3 Tbsp Tamari/soja sauce
- ¼-½ tsp chili powder
- 1 lime only for the juice
- 2 Tbsp roasted, salted peanuts
Addtionally:
- 250 g broad rice noodles
- 2 Tbsp roasted, salted peanuts
- ½ bunch fresh coriander
- 2 limes
Instructions
- Put the rice noodles in hot salted water for 6-8 minutes and let them steep until soft. Then drain, cool and set aside.
- Finely puree all the ingredients for the sauce (vegetable stock, maple syrup, tamari, chili powder, lime juice and peanuts).
- For the vegan egg, drain the tofu and press lightly so that as much liquid as possible escapes. Heat a frying pan with oil. Then break the tofu into large pieces and add it, add turmeric and Kala Namak and fry for 5-10 minutes until crispy. Then remove and set aside.
- Prepare the vegetables. Wash the carrots well and cut into strips. Also cut the peppers into strips. Slice the spring onions and separate the white part from the green part. Finely dice the garlic cloves and ginger.
- Reheat the frying pan. Fry the white part of the spring onion, then add the garlic and ginger and fry briefly. Then add the carrots and pepper strips and fry for 2 minutes. Then deglaze with the sauce, bring to the boil briefly, stir in the drained rice noodles and ⅔ of the "vegan egg”.
- Serve with chopped roasted peanuts, green part of scallions, cilantro greens and lime wedges.
Kala Namak is also known as black salt or Himalayan black salt. In vegan dishes, it is commonly used with tofu for vegan egg dishes. Kala Namak is less salty than regular salt and you might have to adjust the quantity. Kala Namak is praised in the Ayurveda and used for its perceived medical qualities.
