Pad Thai

Low-Pro Pad Thai

I originally made this recipe at the beginning of my blog journey, but I never got around to posting it because I didn’t think my recipe was quite right. But, when I first made Pad Thai for Perfectly PKU, it was actually my first time ever making it. I think I tried making it again later, but it still didn’t come out quite right. Now here I am, much later, and after a bit of a break from this blog, but here it is! 

When I first made this, I didn’t really know what I expected it to taste like, but I loved it. Asian cuisine is one of my favorite cuisines, I just love rice too much. I have found in my Kuvan/”off-diet” periods of life, I prefer it because the rice noodles are much less filling than the traditional Italian pastas. 

Typically, pad thai normally uses peanuts or peanut butter  in the recipe, but I clearly did not include it in this one. I added some sriracha to the sauce to make it a bit spicy, so please don’t add it if you don’t like spice. When I did eventually try pad thai from a restaurant, I didn’t realize that pad thai isn’t typically made to be spicy. But, I kinda prefer a little spice in my noodles. 

For this recipe, I used Lotus Foods rice noodles, but I know for some PKUers rice noodles are a bit high in phe. An easy swap for this is to use a low-protein pasta that is a flat noodle, like Aproten Tagliatelle or Fettuccine. I also use Kikkoman’s Pad Thai mix to give this recipe some flavor, and although it says its 0g of protein, it does contain shrimp powder and oyster extract. You can make this recipe with using the mix, but it does cut back on a lot of the flavor. Most Pad Thai also includes bean sprouts, but I left those out for a couple of reasons. First, bean sprouts contain a good amount of protein for us PKUers, but I also left them out because I just don’t like the taste of them. An alternative for bean sprouts could be water chestnuts or bamboo shoots, but I went with the snap peas to give my pad thai a little crunch. The greatest thing about these types of dishes is the ability to swap out the vegetables with ones you prefer or ones that are better for your daily phe tolerance. 

I garnished this Pad Thai with some lime and cilantro. Not only does it make this dish look colorful, but it also adds some extra flavor to this recipe. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Low-Pro Pad Thai

Ingredients:

1 8oz bag of rice noodles 

½ cup shredded carrots 50g

½ cup yellow onion 45g

1 packet of Kikkoman Pad Thai mix

3 medium Cremini mushrooms 65g

½ cup snow peas 50g

½ red bell pepper 50g

5 whole baby corn cobs 100g

2 green onions

2 tbsp. sesame oil

2 tbsp. cooking oil 

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. honey

1 tsp. ginger

2 cloves of garlic

¼ tsp.  sriracha sauce (optional)

2 lime wedges (optional)

Servings per recipe: 4

Serving Size:1 cup (170g) 

Phe per serving: 150 mg with rice noodles; 114 mg with Aproten Tagliatelle

Directions:

1. Cook the rice noodles according to package directions.

2. While pasta is cooking, mix the soy sauce, honey, and sriracha (optional)  sauce in a small bowl and set to the side.

3. In a large fry pan, or wok if you have one, heat the cooking and sesame oils over medium heat.

4. First, add the yellow onions to the pan. Once they start to appear translucent, add the carrots and snap peas into the pan. Cook for about 3 minutes then add the mushrooms, whole baby corn, and  green onion (option - save the green ends of the onion for garnish)

5. Once the vegetables are cooked through, add the rice noodles to the pan. Then add the soy sauce mixture and Pad Thai mix (Kikkoman).

6. Stir noodles well until completely blended, about a minute or so.

7. Garnish with green onions and cilantro and serve with lime wedges. Enjoy!