It's a commonly known fact that vegetarians and vegans need to be careful with some foods that contain meat but aren't actually meat. Most people know about gelatin but some common surprises across the vegan community have included certain alcohols, worcester sauce, hard cheese and...satay sauce.
The first time I ever had satay sauce was after my lifestyle change upon finding it in a recipe book but when I found a pre-made bottle in Tesco I discovered fish sauce on the ingredients list. So no store bought stuff for me. But I've noticed quite a few veggies getting caught out by satay sauce, which is best left alone in restaurants unless it's been confirmed it's 100% plant-made.
This recipe is actually one of my favourites to put together (you might have spotted it on my Instagram) and I almost always have these ingredients in my cupboards. Also a note that I cannot take credit for this recipe as I found it in a BBC Good Food recipe book I bought from a car-boot sale. It's from 2005 so I assume it's no longer in production (it appears to be one of these free supplements attached to a magazine).
My basic vegan satay sauce contains the following ingredients:
3 tbsp peanut butter
3 tbsp sweet chili sauce
100ml coconut milk (I use coconut milk powder)
100ml vegetable stock
2 tbsp soy sauce
And my method is:
1. In one bowl mix the peanut butter, sweet chili sauce and soy sauce
2. If you use coconut milk powder like me mix this in a separate bowl (if you're using prepare coconut milk, just include it in the first bowl)
3. Prepare the vegetable stock in another bowl
4. Mix the three bowls together
It's important to mix these ingredients separately as it can make the sauce lumpy if all of them are mixed together immediately.
This sauce can be used for a wide range of dishes but the dish I made in the photo above is the following:
1. Create the satay sauce using the method above
2. Put the noodles onto cook (if you're using pre-cooked noodles you can skip this step)
3. Heat some toasted sesame oil in a sauce pan and once heated stir-fry some ginger, broccoli, peppers, broad beans and sliced onions for three minutes
4. Add some chopped garlic and stir-fry for three minutes
5. Pour over the peanut sauce and bring to the boil
6. When the noodles are cooked, either add to the stir-fry and mix through or serve in a separate bowl
As I said, you can use this sauce in a wide range of dishes. One of my favourite vegetables to use is broccoli as it soaks up the flavours so well! So much I've been known to serve satay broccoli as a side dish. But other foods that also soak up flavours well include tofu, friend bean curd and potatoes.
Do you have any other satay sauce recipes? What was a type of food that caught you out when you realised it wasn't veggie?
