Gado Gado (Indonesian salad with peanut sauce)
Gado Gado – fun to say, delicious to eat, this traditional Indonesian salad is probably the only recipe where you can put the words “blanched vegetables” and “tasty” in the same sentence and really mean it.
That Gado Gado peanut sauce is a miracle worker! A Bali food favourite, it’s healthy and endlessly versatile. Use ANY vegetables – raw or cooked! This is a dish for the veg hating child within all of us. Clever Indonesians figured out a way to make plain vegetables completely irresistible to everyone – by drizzling with a sweet savoury Indonesian peanut sauce!
Because seriously – if you plonk a giant plate of boiled vegetables in front of me and call it dinner, I would look at you like you’d lost your mind.
But then if peanut sauce makes an appearance…. suddenly, dinner gets a whole lot more exciting. Gado Gado! We love saying the name, we love how colourful it is, we most definitely love eating it, and we REALLY love that how virtuous it makes us feel, scoffing down so many vegetables for dinner!
“Gado Gado” means “mix-mix” which is appropriate for this versatile dish that can be made with any mix of vegetables
a wise cook
What goes in Gado Gado Peanut Sauce
Gado Gado is all about the peanut sauce which is a slight variation of Thai Peanut Sauce.
When made from scratch, it’s a bit of a pain, calling for pureeing roasted peanuts (and it’s tough to make it completely smooth), a handful of aromatics like lemongrass, galangal, garlic, South East Asian “umami” from shrimp paste, plus sauces.
Serves: 3 portions
Preparation duration: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup natural peanut butter, smooth or crunchy (your choice) (Note 1)
- 4 tsp red curry paste , store bought (Maesri brand best, Note 2)
- 3 tsp Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce, Note 3)
- 1 tsp sambal oelak or other chilli paste (adjust spiciness to taste)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large garlic clove , pressed using garlic press (~ 3/4 tsp)
- 1 1/2 tbsp lime juice (Note 4)
- 1/2 cup coconut milk , full fat (Ayam brand best)
- 1/2 cup water