Easy 5-Minute Peanut Sauce Recipe
This easy peanut sauce recipe is one of those pantry staples you’ll turn to again and again. It’s creamy, a little sweet, a little spicy, and full of flavor made with simple ingredients you probably already have on hand. Whether you drizzle it over noodles, use it as a dip, or stir it into veggies, it’s a quick way to make any meal feel a little more special (and save money at the same time).
✩ What readers are saying…
“I just wanted to say I’ve been making your peanut sauce for years! Maybe even a decade already, sheesh. This review is a bit overdo. I’ve tried a couple of other recipes, but I always return to my favorite. Truly the best!” -Laura
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This peanut sauce recipe is pretty much a staple around our house, mostly for how it makes a meal easy: make some noodles or rice (or use lettuce wraps), stir-fry some veggies, pour the sauce over everything and dinner’s ready.
So quick and flavorful – it’s one of my favorite sauces.
Peanut sauce is one of those items where the store-bought product doesn’t necessarily include a lot of junk-type ingredients, it’s just really expensive! Even in Asian markets, it is not cheap.
After trying several recipes and being disappointed (some were just like putting straight peanut butter on your noodles!), I stood in the aisle of the store and wrote down the ingredients of the brand we liked in the order listed, then came home and fiddled with amounts until it passed the taste test.
And pass, it did! This is SO good and we really like being able to adjust it to the spice level we like. It takes just minutes to make, too. I’m so happy to have this recipe to add to our other pantry basic recipes.
Ingredients
Ingredients Notes & Substitutions
- Soy sauce: I’ve had a number of readers ask about avoiding soy – if this is you, too, you can easily substitute raw coconut aminos for a soy-free version.
- Peanut butter: You want to use a natural peanut butter for this recipe that contains only peanuts and salt (this is my favorite).
- Honey or brown sugar: I prefer honey, but both of these work (and the bottled ingredient is usually brown or cane sugar).
- Rice vinegar (unseasoned) AND apple cider vinegar: The bottled version I based my recipe on used both rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar, so I include that as an option. I don’t always use both, though, since it’s easier to add just the full amount of one vinegar – it’s your choice.
- Fresh ginger and garlic: I prefer the fresh versions of these spices, but you can use powdered (I’ve listed powdered amounts in the recipe card).
- Sriracha hot sauce – This is the ingredient that adds the spiciness to the peanut sauce – if you have another Asian style hot sauce, you can use that instead. You can also leave it out completely, but the flavor will be impacted – I’d more suggest just using a very small amount.
Make This Peanut Sauce Recipe in 5 Minutes
Step 1: Prep and gather ingredients. Add all into a blender or wide mouth pint jar.
Step 2-Option 1: Blend all ingredients using a stick blender right in the wide mouth pint jar.
Jami’s Big Tip for Fresh Ginger
I think grated fresh ginger gives the best flavor in this recipe. I used to be afraid of fresh ginger – do you peel it? Where do you keep it? How do you prepare it? Besides, it looked weird. So I would mostly use powdered ginger (I know…).
But this Microplane grater (which I love, love, love) changed my ginger ways. It’s simple to just keep a knob in the freezer, cut off a chunk when needed, peel it and grate it frozen. I’ve found the key to easy grating is to do it while the knob is still mostly frozen, it doesn’t grate as nicely if it’s thawed.
Step 2-Option 2: Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.
Step 4: Transfer peanut sauce to a bottle that’s easy for pouring (a reused dressing bottle is great).
No appliance option: If you don’t have any appliance, you can simply use a whisk to blend all the ingredients together. It will just take a bit longer and the end result won’t be quite as smooth.
TIP: If you’re not sure about the spice level you like, add the Sriracha sauce at the end, mixing in a small amount, tasting, and then adding more if you’d like. I use around two teaspoons, but to be honest, I usually just squirt some in the blender or jar, since we like it spicy.
How to Use Peanut Sauce
Don’t you love recipes like this? Whirl it all up for a few seconds and voila – a wonderful sauce that will add flavor to so many things. I especially love it for quick meals like:
- Stir fries
- Lettuce wraps
- Noodle salads
- A dip for satay (grilled chicken skewers).
- A dip for fresh salad rolls.
- Drizzling over any type of grain or salad bowl.
I hope you love this peanut sauce recipe – if you make it, be sure to leave a recipe rating to let me know!
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5-Minute Peanut Sauce Recipe
Equipment
- blender or stick immersion blender (or a whisk)
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup soy sauce*
- 1/2 cup peanut butter feel free to add more if you like a really peanutty sauce…
- 1/4 cup honey brown sugar or coconut/palm sugar
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar + 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar (OR 3 tablespoons all rice vinegar or all apple cider vinegar)**
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic (or 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder)
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger (or 1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger)
- 1/2 to 2 teaspoons Sriracha sauce (start with 1/2 teaspoon and work up from there to your preferred spice level)
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a blender and whirl until mixed.
- Alternately, add ingredients to a jar and blend with a stick immersion blender until smooth. (Or simply stir with a whisk until as smooth as possible.)
- Pour into a glass jar and keep in the refrigerator for about a month.
Notes
Nutrition
More Homemade Pantry Basic Recipes to Try
Note: This recipe has been updated – it was originally published in 2009 and updated in 2016 and 2025.
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Hi Jami. I just wanted to say I’ve been making your peanut sauce for years! Maybe even a decade already, sheesh. This review is a bit overdo.
I’ve tried a couple of other recipes, but I always return to my favorite. Truly the best!
Oh, gosh, Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to review it now – it’s even better with your years of use as a testimony! 😀
I just made this. You rock! The frozen ginger tip is priceless. Here’s a hack you might want to try with this recipe if you hate washing your blender as much as I do. A standard size canning jar screws right into the blender blade thing. Dump all the ingredients into the canning jar (leaving the garlic cloves whole since the blades will mince them), screw the blade thing onto the jar and whirl, replace the blade thing with a leftover mayo or peanut butter jar lid (both fit on a standard canning jar). No fuss, no muss. Thanks again for the great recipe.
I’m so glad you like this recipe, Linda – and thanks for that tip, it sounds perfectly easy!
How long can you store your sauce in the fridge?
At least a couple months for us – but it’s never gone bad for us, Dani. Hope that helps some!
Carmela- Sure! That’s one of the reasons it’s great to make your own condiments- you can tailor them to your own liking. 🙂
We love Sriracha and it’s slightly Asian taste goes well with the peanut sauce, but try whatever you have to make it spicy and see what you like- even cayenne pepper would work, I would think.
Jami, Is there a way to make this without soy sauce? Soy is something I like to avoid but it’s in everything asian.
Well, it’s a main ingredient, so I don’t know. 🙂 You’d have to experiment – do you have something you normally substitute? I only get an organic brand of soy that doesn’t have preservatives and junk in it, but I understand your concern. The one thing my niece uses on Asian food when she’s here is sweet chili sauce, since it doesn’t have soy. It is loaded with sugar though…sigh.
I used raw coconut aminos which is soy free. It worked great!
Fantastic to know this, Rachel – thanks!
Yes, I make my satay sauce without soy sauce
I used vegan Penang and massaman curry paste, tamarind , coconut milk , sea salt and palm sugar and kaffir lime leaf. Hope this help for people are allergies with wheat. Adds more flavour, use less curry paste less spicy
Victoria: I’ve never heard of most of those ingredients: Where can I get them? I have seen red curry paste in the market…I HAVE heard of kaffir lime leaf, but have no idea where to get any. (not sure if if is a real lime leaf like peppermint leaf?) But thanks for the idea of homemade satay sauce!
Can regular hot sauce be substituted for th angry chicken kind?
Thanks for this recipe…i’ve been looking for a homemade version of peanut sauce.