After a long week of holiday eating, I’m always looking for a quick and healthy meal to combat the holiday pounds! Especially in the few days between Christmas and New Years, it’s nice to get some healthy eating in. I’ve experimented with this spicy broccoli Pad Thai dish a few times now and I love the results. Traditional Pad Thai dishes usually have some sort of meat (shrimp or pork are the most common I think), but this veggie version is a nice change.
The sauce is spicy enough to give tons of flavor to the dish and I don’t really miss the meat!
Spicy and healthy!
This dish is very flexible. I’ve made it twice now two completely different ways. The sauce is very adjustable and I’ve topped it with peanuts or cashews, different kinds of sprouts, and scallions one time and cilantro one time. So go crazy with it!
Broccoli Pad Thai
Serves 4- 2 pounds broccoli, cut into florets
- 1 package (14 ounces) rice noodles
- 2 eggs, slightly beatenSauce:
- 1/4 Cup soy sauce
- 2 Tablespoons fish sauce (obviously leave this out if you are shooting for a true vegetarian version)
- 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 Tablespoon chili sauce (I used a chili garlic sauce one time. It was awesome. Also adjust this to your heat desires.)
- 1 lime, juice only
- 3 inches ginger, peeled and gratedGarnishes:
- Peanuts or cashews, chopped
- Sprouts, bean or broccoli are good
- Scallions
- Cilantro
- More chili sauce or soy sauce to taste!Helpful Equipment:
- Wok
- Vegetable Steamer
Preparing the Broccoli. The first thing I like to do for this meal is prep the broccoli. Start by chopping off all the florets. If some are larger, cut them in half so they are basically the same size. If you wanted to you could peel the broccoli stalk and chop it up as well. I just used the florets though.
Next, you want to par-cook the broccoli until it’s cooked but still slightly crunchy. Soggy broccoli does not make a good Pad Thai. If you have a steamer, that’s probably the easiest, but I also made this one time and blanched the florets in salted, boiling water for about 4 minutes and then shocked them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. That worked just as well as steaming. If you are steaming though, they’ll probably take about 5 minutes. They should be bright green when they’re done and cooked but still slightly crunchy.
Steamin' broccoli! Steamin' BroccolAY!
Preparing the Other Ingredients. Besides the broccoli, there’s a few other things you need to get ready for the meal. First, is the noodles. Basically, just cook them according to the directions on the package. This should involve putting them in boiling water (off the heat) for about 15 minutes. The two important things to remember about rice noodles is to make sure you use a lot of water. One gallon per package is probably good. Also, be sure to give them a stir every few minutes. If you don’t do these things, the noodles have a tendency to stick together and you’ll end up with clumps of uncooked noodles in your Pad Thai.
Strange creatures.
Once your noodles are cooked, drain them through a colander and give them a rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.
Also, lightly beat a few eggs!
Whip it good. And by good I mean lightly.
Making the Sauce. While your broccoli or noodles are cooking, you need to prepare the sauce. These are a few of the things you will need. You’ll also want some soy sauce and ginger for sure.
Missing from the photo is soy sauce
Basically, just whisk everything up in a bowl. I think it’s pretty important to taste this and adjust for your taste buds. I consider my version above to be middle of the road spicy. It’s an incredibly flexible recipe though so taste a tiny bit and adjust. The sauce should be pretty intense because it has to flavor a lot of noodles and broccoli.
Good lookin' sauce!
Cooking the Pad Thai. It’s important to have all your ingredients ready before you start. This dish goes pretty fast, especially if you have a good wok. If you don’t, you can still make this dish though. I made it once just using my largest skillet and it was extremely edible.
To start, add your sauce to a hot pan. It will sizzle and bubble and start to reduce immediately. Once it is hot, add all your noodles and begin stirring to combine the noodles and the sauce. If you have a good hot wok, this will go very quickly – just a few minutes will do the trick for sure.
My crappy version of stir-fry.
Once the noodles are hot and the sauce is reducing, add your eggs and stir more. The eggs should cook almost instantly. Then add your broccoli to the party! Again, this is a stir fry. Not a let-sit fry. So keep stirring it!
Nice.
Toppings Galore! After a minute or two of cooking, it should be done. The sauce should be reduced down and thick and the noodles and broccoli should be hot and the egg cooked. The real fun of this dish involves toppings. I like to put out a bunch of bowls of various toppings (above in the recipe) that people can add to their individual servings.
I think some sprouts, a few nuts, and a good drizzle of extra soy sauce or chili sauce makes for a good version.
Top with all kinds of good stuff.
Start to finish this dish takes about 30-45 minutes to make depending on how good you are at multi-tasking and how hot you can get your pan or wok. It feeds a family and is pretty economical if you have a well-stocked pantry. All I needed to buy for my version was broccoli, rice noodles, limes, and ginger. It’s great the next day for leftovers also!
I haven’t experimented too much with Thai dishes like this, but I found it pretty straightforward and was as good as most (but not all) Pad Thais that I’ve ordered for take out. If you are looking for something healthy and quick this week, give it a shot!
Looking forward to trying this! However, I’m allergic to ginger. What do you recommend I use as a substitute?
@Erin. You could definitely use garlic instead. A few cloves should do the trick. It’s pretty hard to substitute ginger though… it’d be fine without it though also ;)
sounds great, need a food break, i’ll need to get some sauces first, have a great asian market nearby.
Nick – Awesome man! I need to step up my game if you are getting into some more exotic recipes.
Erin – Are you allergic to all members of the Zingiberaceae family, such as turmeric, cardamom, and galangal? If NOT, I would say to seek out galangal at your local ethnic shop, but its pretty similar to ginger, so I am guessing that means you are allergic to that too. Dr. allergies over here.
@Dan. Nice. Thanks for the substitutions man.
Dan – Thanks! I don’t know about allergies to the rest of the family so I’ll give galangal a try next time. I was a bit to anxious to make this dish, though, to drive across the county to my ethnic store, so I used garlic this time.
Nick – I have besmirched your good name. :( My Macheesmo Pad Thai was an epic failure. I don’t think I want to go into the reasons as the main one is incredibly embarrassing. But I’ll just say that my issue was quantity, not technique or equipment failure. Geez, Louise! Next time I’ll know better… and there will definitely be a next time because I wanted this dish to taste as awesome as your pictures. Oh well.
I’ll give this a shot. Looks awesome