Preparation time: 20 Minutes | Cooking Time: 15 Minutes

Pad Thai was probably one of my most favorite dishes, alongside many other stir fried noodle dishes my mom used to make at home. During my few months of strict “paleo” eating, I had opted to find alternatives to using noodles in the dish (although now, my diet has reintroduced rice noodles for a post-workout carb load). Not only that, but I also had to create a sauce that had no extra added sugars, any soybean or refined oils, or any of that sort.

My native Thai mom (being a taste-bud sensory overload flavor fanatic) would add tons of sugar and salt into everything and would use store-bought sauces for most of the things she made (which were pretty much as “authentic” as it could get!)

I, on the other hand, was interested in substituting out anything I could in place of extra sugars and oils (because I do get strange skin breakouts when I eat soy-based foods and refined oils, oddly enough!) I found that the base of Pad Thai sauce was essentially the pulp from tamarind fruit (which tastes like a tangy date) mixed with a few other flavor enhancing ingredients such as fish sauce, white pepper, palm sugar and some chili sauce.

You can buy tamarind concentrate in very select stores (some asian markets will carry it…we found this one at our local Whole Foods). Note that the sauce will be incredibly powerful (as in, it packs a strong tangy punch that makes you clench your tongue), and you probably will only need half of it for this recipe (and save the other have for a yummy stir-fry later in the week).

Feel free to also use a pre-bottled Pad Thai sauce instead if you have a difficult time finding tamarind concentrate .

This recipe will focus on the non-noodle version (or…the “noodles” being primarily vegetables). However, if you’re interested in boiling up a pack of rice noodles, I’ll tell you where to add them!

Lastly, I just want to take a moment to rave about bean sprouts! (yes, I realize these are legumes but many of us Paleo folk have expanded to include legumes, and the amount of anti-nutrients in bean sprouts is actually pretty minimal). I actually used to hate these things as a kid because they always tasted so bitter to me and were “in the way” of getting to the yummy noodles. Such a nuisance, I know!

But, after switching my diet to more vegetables and less refined sugars for awhile, I found my taste palette has expanded tremendously and these once bitter bean sprouts are now a satisfyingly sweet, crunchy and cool pairing with heavily sauced stir fry noodles. Don’t worry if you can’t find bean sprouts…canned water chestnuts also make a great crunchy alternative too!

Sauce Ingredients 2 tbsp tamarind concentrate

1 tbsp fish sauce (Red Boat is the most “paleo” brand without extra sugar)

½ tsp white pepper

1 tbsp Sriacha or Cholula chili garlic hot sauce (optional)

2 tbsp honey

3-4 tbsp chicken/vegetable broth (optional, but dilutes the sauce so it’s not as concentrated Chicken + Marinade 1 ½ lbs raw chicken breast

2 tbsp fish sauce

½ tsp white pepper

2 tbsp gluten-free tamari sauce

1 tbsp honey

2-3 minced garlic cloves Vegetables & Other Ingredients 1 shallot, finely minced

1 large handful green beans, cut into 1” length pieces

5-6 garlic scapes (cut into 1” length pieces…if they’re not in season, asparagus or more green beans are good alternatives)

1 small red onion, cut into thick slices

1 large handful bean sprouts

2 carrots, julienned into long “match-sticks”

1 large zucchini, julienned into long “match-sticks”

3-4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

3 tbsp chopped green onion / scallions

½ cup roasted, unsalted cashews, crushed

juice from ½ lime, plus some lime wedges for presentation

Marinating the Chicken

Note that this step is completely optional, although will add a nice juicy flavor throughout your chunks of chicken when you do cook it. I find that with most asian dishes, the flavor matures and develops to its best the day or two AFTER the dish is made, once all of the sauces and spices have time to settle in to all the meats and vegetables. It always seems that when a Thai dish (or any type of asian dish) is just done cooking for the first time that the flavors just haven’t melded together 100%. That’s why Thai takeout always tastes so good as leftovers the next day!

Anyways, cut your uncooked chicken into bite sized (1.5” long strips) and put it in a glass tupperware bowl or large ziplock bag with the fish sauce, tamari sauce, pepper, minced garlic cloves and honey. You can marinate the chicken several hours before (the morning of is great!) or even the night before. Even if you get to this step only an hour before you make the actual pad thai, it’ll still help to seal in some more flavors in the meat.

Making the Sauce

It’s crazy to think that the sauce can be broken down into such few (5) ingredients!

Tamarind concentrate has the consistency of really thick, dark clumpy molasses. It’s actually not as sweet as it looks (but has a sour tang to it), so we need to pair it with a little honey and spice to tame the punch.

Basically, just stir together in a small bowl (ideally a small tupperware you can store in the fridge) the 2 tbsp of tamarind concentrate, 2 tbsp honey, ½ tsp white pepper, 1 tbsp of hot sauce, and 1 tbsp of fish sauce. If you find the sauce to be a bit thick of a consistency to deal with, you can use a tbsp or two of chicken broth to help thin it out to make it more manageable.

You’ll probably only need half the sauce for your first batch of Paleo Pad Thai since this sauce is very concentrated in flavor…I recommend starting a little on the lighter side and adding more sauce if you think it needs more zing.

Ok, set that sauce aside for now (room temperature is fine).

Prepping the Vegetables

I LOVE my julienne peeler because it makes amazing “zoodles” (out of zucchini) and “carrot-noodles”. If you’re looking for an amazing low-carb alternative to regular noodles, why not make noodles out of vegetables?

I got this julienne peeler from Amazon . They definitely don’t cost a lot and are incredibly useful. I love using it just to make little “match-stick carrots” for my salads, or for some sweet potato hash.

If you have a vegetable spiralizer…that would also work incredibly well! I have one in the corner of my cabinet somewhere that my cousin got for me for Christmas one day but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet…might have to one day and find I’ll be addicted to it.

One thing I find hard with the julienne peeler is getting to the last “end” of the vegetable. Usually I end up with chunks that are hard to tackle with the peeler right

up until the end. So in this case, I just go as far as I can, then use my chefs knife to cut the last chunks of vegetable into small julienned strips.

Anyways, once you julienne your zucchini and carrots, DO keep them in separate bowls, as carrots and zucchini cook at different rates (carrots take longer to cook because they are a denser vegetable) so we need to add them into the stir-fry at separate times so as to not overcook or undercook one or the other.

Tis the season for garlic scapes! I find these to be such a treasure when they’re available since they add a great subtle garlic flavor to any sautéed dish. Of course, traditional pad thai probably doesn’t use these, but hey, I might as well add them in, right?

Anytime I see garlic scapes at our local farmers market or whole foods, I snag as many as I can knowing they’ll only be in season for a few short weeks before I have to wait until the next summer. If you’ve never had garlic scapes before, they taste like green beans with a mild garlicky flavor and are great to sauté just on their own with a little bit of butter or olive oil. I’m going to add them into my pad thai for a bit more garlic flavor.

To prep most garlic scapes, just take a handful and line up the ends so all the “tails” are together, then cut the tails off. I like to keep the little bulbs attached because they have little mini baby garlic “sprouts” in them that add some delicious flavor, but feel free to cut them off if you don’t feel the need to scare vampires off anytime soon.

You can then cut them down into 1” – 1.5” strips, or even a little longer if you’re going to sauté them on their own. For this pad thai dish, I kept them a similar length to the green beans to allow them to cook a bit faster and to mix in well with the veggie noodles.

If garlic scapes are unfortunately not in season, you could always add in more green beans, or even use asparagus for another green “tubular” alternative”

Lastly, prep your cilantro and scallions (and set them aside in a bowl) to add some brightness and color at the very end.

Putting it all together

For this project, we have an awesome Calphalon wok that we use for our stir fry dishes…it’s deep and holds sauces very well, making it easy to stir lots of vegetables and noodles without spilling all over the sides. I’m sure a standard large 12″ skillet would be fine, but a wok is just so cool to work with!

Heat up your stove to medium high, and add in your minced shallots with a little bit of coconut oil. Cook the shallots for about 1-2 minutes until they start to develop a golden-brown color and become a little translucent.

Add in your marinated chicken and stir everything around (still on medium-high) until the chicken has just a tinge of pink left on any of the sides. You don’t want to overcook the chicken or cook it all the way just yet (because we still have to cook the veggies, and the chicken will continue to cook a little once they get added). So, keep stirring the meat around every 30 seconds or so and watch for the moment where there’s just a fair amount of pink left around a side of the chicken.

At that moment, add in your green bean/garlic scapes and red onion slices since these require the most time to cook. Put a lid on everything, and let the juices from the chicken “steam” the green beans & scapes for about 3 minutes.

By the way, I TOTALLY forgot to include scrambled eggs in this version!

Silly me…usually every pad thai dish I have incorporates some kind of scrambled egg in there. If you’re interested in adding in a bit of protein and you have an egg or two on hand, you can beat in a small bowl 1-2 eggs (like you’re making scrambled eggs), and then pour the eggs in right after the veggies cook. Let the eggs settle and cook for about a minute before you begin stirring them, so they form nice little scrambled “clumps” rather than disintegrate into the whole dish.

Again, totally optional, but cool to recognize and know the next time around!

Once the green beans & scapes turn an even more “vibrant” green (and soften a little), add in your julienned carrots and 2 tbsp (or about half of) the pad thai sauce batch. Again, it’s ok to start a bit light on the sauce, since a little of this stuff goes a LONG way in terms of flavor. You can always add a little more in the end. but you’ll find that even though the sauce seems little and thick now, it will definitely thin out and spread well once you get everything stirred around.

If you are using rice noodles in place of the julienned carrots & zucchini, NOW is the time to add in the rice noodles, along with the 2 tbsp of the pad thai sauce.

Stir around the vegetables, carrots and sauce for about 1 minute until the carrots start to soften.

Then finally add in the julienned zucchini and the bean sprouts. I like add bean sprouts in near the very end to preserve the sweet crunchiness of the sprouts (they’re just not as exciting when overcooked and limp).

Turn off the heat, and give everything a final stir around for another minute. The zucchini noodles will cook extremely fast because they’re a low-density vegetable, so it won’t take much to get them to a soft and wavy “noodle” consistency.

Finally, add in a squeeze of your lime juice from your ½ lime wedge, and throw your cilantro and green onions on top. The lime and herbs really make everything feel and taste “brighter” since stir fry sauces tend to weigh down a lot of the flavors and make everything feel heavy, right?

Sprinkle some crushed roasted cashews to add a bit of crunch and nuttiness to complement the bright

flavors. To crush cashews, I put them in a small ziplock back and hammer them lightly with a mallet. You can also use a mortar and pestle too. I think roasted cashews tend to work better than raw cashews due to that extra toasty flavor they have.

(By the way, the authentic version would use peanuts instead, but this is the paleo version, right? I find cashews to be the closest and tastiest alternative to crushed peanuts).

Top everything off with a lime wedge for looks, and there you have it!

I hope you enjoy this “Paleo” nutrient-dense vegetable version of pad thai. Feel free to substitute the veggie noodles with spaghetti squash, or just regular ol’ rice noodles if you’re totally cool with that.

I know that with rice noodles that I definitely can’t eat as much because they’re so much denser in terms of carbohydrate grams than vegetables are. At least with vegetable noodles, I can really load up my plate without feeling guilty!

Lastly, here’s an obligatory “hand and meal” photo…for measurement of meat amount and noodles. (I’ll be honest, I had to pick through to pull out the chicken separately from the vegetables in order to take this photo). I’ll pair this with a good piece of fruit to balance out the right amount of carbs since most of these vegetables used are fairly low-density and low-to-moderate glycemic vegetables.

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