Authentic Thai Drunken Noodles Recipe - Pad Kee Mao

Published: Jul 16, 2021 · Modified: Sep 18, 2024 by Pailin Chongchitnant · This post may contain affiliate links

Pad kee mao ผัดขี้เมา or drunken noodles is stir fried rice noodles with holy basil and lots of chilies. It's a cult-favourite Thai street food. The combination of chewy fresh rice noodles, the epic savoury sauce, and the fragrance of holy basil ... there is nothing quite like it and it never gets old.

In this recipe I share 7 secrets to making the perfect, authentic pad kee mao, guaranteed to make this better than take out; and once the prep is done it takes literally 3 minutes to make each portion. You can see the video in the recipe card where I show the cooking in real time!

Ingredients and Notes

Here are all the ingredients for drunken noodles and important notes about them. Ingredient amounts will be in the recipe card below. You can change up the vegetables and I love using carrot and Chinese broccoli, though traditionally baby corn, long beans, and straw mushrooms are often added.

Soy sauce. I use Healthy Boy Brand soy sauce which is a classic Thai brand, but any other kind of regular or light soy sauce can be used.
Golden Mountain Sauce. This is another kind of soy sauce with a slightly more intense flavour, you can substitute Maggi Seasoning which is very similar, or use more soy sauce.
Oyster sauce. See this post for how to choose good oyster sauce.
Fish sauce. See this post for how to choose good fish sauce.
Sugar
Chinese broccoli, also known as gai lan. Choose young, small stems if you can as they are less bitter.
Carrot
Young peppercorns. These are totally optional. They can be found fresh or brined in glass jars at some Southeast Asian stores. They are added whole and still on the stems, and when eating you can pick out the peppers and eat them for extra heat.
Fingerroot (grachai). Also optional but they do add a lovely herbaceous aroma. They can be found fresh or brined in a glass jar at Southeast Asian stores.
Holy basil. Holy basil can be hard to find, you can sub regular Italian basil or Thai basil instead, but I do find Italian basil to have a flavour more similar to holy basil.
Garlic
Thai chilies. Add as many as you want depending on your spice tolerance. If your tolerance isn't high, add just one to start.
Large, mild red chilies such as spur chilies (pic below), anaheim peppers or red bell pepper.
Protein of your choice, I'm using shrimp. If using chicken, pork, or beef, a quick and simple marinade will be helpful. Instructions in the recipe card below.
Fresh rice noodles also known as ho fun noodles. If you buy them from the store they may be cold and stuck together in a block. You'll need to reheat them before separating, following instructions in the recipe card. It is possible to use dried large rice noodles instead but it is not as good, and you will need to cook them first before using.

Why I use 2 types of chilies in this recipe

Pad kee mao uses a lot of chilies, so the chili flavour, not just the heat, is part of the flavour profile. If we only used the fiery Thai chilies, we can only add a few before it becomes too spicy, and not enough chili flavour would come through. So we also use the milder chilies to add more chili flavour without the heat.

In Thailand, prik chee fa, or spur chilies are used, but any mild red pepper such as anaheim peppers or even red bell pepper would work in a pinch.

How to Make Authentic Drunken Noodles

Be sure to check out the detailed recipe and full video tutorial in the recipe card below to ensure success - but here's a bird's eye view of what you'll need to do.

Make a rough paste with chilies and garlic.
Cook off the protein and remove from the pan.
Sauté the chili garlic paste.
Add gai lan stems, carrots, grachai and young peppercorns.

Add the noodles, the sauce, and sugar and toss until the sauce has been absorbed.
Let noodles sit and char slightly before tossing. Then repeat the charring a few times.
Add gai lan leaves and holy basil.
All done!

7 Secrets to Epic Pad Kee Mao

It is not hard to make a decent plate of drunken noodles, but an epic one? Not so simple. There are a few things you need to know:

Do not eyeball the ingredients. Weigh the noodles, and measure all sauce ingredients. There are times when winging it is okay, and using your cook's intuition is romantic. But this is not one of those times. The noodle-to-sauce ratio is extremely important, and there's nothing more disappointing than pad kee mao that's bland, or worse, too salty (which cannot be fixed afterward).
Make a chili and garlic paste. One of the great flavours of drunken noodles come from the garlic and chilies. Adding chopped garlic and chilies can only get you so far, but pounding them into a paste in a mortar allows for more flavour to come out and infuse into the whole dish. Also, adding extra peppers that are not spicy gives more chili flavour without it becoming too spicy.
Cook 1 portion at a time. This is the secret to well-charred noodles that are not broken or soggy. Crowding the pan traps too much moisture and causes you to stir more which breaks the noodles. If you have a large wok and a high BTU burner, you can probably get away with 2 portions at a time. It seems tedious but watch the video below and you will see that once the prep is done, each batch literally takes 3 minutes to cook!
Cook the protein separately, and do a "mini brine". By cooking off the protein first and adding it back in at the end you can control exactly how long it cooks, ensuring perfectly cooked protein every time. Good news is you do not have to cook the protein 1 portion at a time, just cook it all off together in the beginning. Also, if using chicken, pork, or beef, marinate it with seasoning plus a little extra water, like a mini brine, to get extra juicy meat.
Allow noodles to char. Once noodles are mixed with the sauce, allow them to sit and "grill" a bit on the hot pan. This creates a little browning, a little smokiness, and a little extra flavour that makes all the difference.
Use fresh noodles. Yes, dry rice noodles exist; and they will work, but it is not the same and not nearly as good as fresh. Cooked previously-dried rice noodles do not yield the same soft and springy texture of fresh noodles, in the same way that cooked dried pasta is not the same as fresh pasta. I understand you gotta use what you have, but if you can, it's worth either looking around for them or making them yourself.
Use a stick-resistant pan. These fresh rice noodles are notoriously sticky. So it's important you use either a well-seasoned carbon steel wok, a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, or a nonstick wok. BUT if using a nonstick material that cannot be used with high heat, you will have to give up some noodle charring.
*If you only have a stainless steel pan, you can try this: Heat the pan until very hot - until water sprinkled onto the pan beads up into little balls and glides around - then add the oil and begin cooking. This is a trick that turns stainless steel pan nonstick which I've tried with eggs with success, but have not tried with fresh rice noodles.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Make sure you watch the video in the recipe card below! You'll see me cooking pad kee mao in REAL TIME with no cuts. It'll show you how it's done in only 3 minutes, give you an idea of how the process goes and how to organize your prep, and I promise it'll be so helpful for when you cook!

Frequently Asked Questions

I can't find fresh rice noodles, what can I use instead?

You can make them using my recipe here! You can also use dried wide rice noodles, but the results are not nearly as good and you will need to fully cook them before adding to the pan. You can read my post here all about mastering rice noodles to learn more about different types of noodles and how to cook them properly.

I don't eat shrimp, can I substitute other protein?

Yes! Anything works, or even omit the protein altogether. If using chicken, pork, or beef though, I would marinate them following the instructions in the recipe card. That simple marinade yields wonderfully tender meat with the extra bit of water that gets absorbed into the meat.

How can I make these vegetarian or vegan?

You can use vegetarian stir-fry sauce instead of oyster sauce, and use soy sauce instead of fish sauce. You can also do a simplified version and use 2 parts soy sauce to 1 part Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce.

How do I store and reheat leftovers?

These noodles do not keep well, so if at all possible, cook only as much as you can eat. Once refrigerated and reheated, the noodles will not have as good of a texture and can be a bit mushy. Having said that, if you do end up with leftovers, do not keep it for any longer than 1 day. The next day, reheated pad kee mao is still edible, but after a couple of days...I wouldn't eat it.

To reheat, you can microwave it, but stir it halfway through and make sure the noodles are thoroughly heated through or they will not be soft, which is really awful. You can also re-fry it quickly in a nonstick pan, again, making sure the noodles are steaming hot.

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