Indonesian peanut sauce - delightful, delicious, and essential

by Tom Cloyd - 2 min. read - (reviewed 2025-02-15:2301 Pacific Time (USA))

Many years ago I spent a year of graduate school at the East-West Population Institute of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. While I was there, one of the great things that happened to me was befriending a wonderdul Indonesian married couple who introduced me to a version of this sauce.

Years passed, and I never forgot them or the sauce, used as dressing for the well-known Indonesian Gato-Gato salad. I wanted to have the sauce again, and so began experimenting, did some research, and this is the result.

It is an essential in my kitchen - usually in the form of a number of half-cup containers in my freezer.

It is fantastic on any hearty salad (although it may need a bit of thinning) or steamed or fried vegetables of any kind. It’s easy to make, and once made I have trouble not eating it by the spoonful.

  • peanut butter: 2/3 c (Try to use a kind that has no added ingredients other than salt. If hydrogenated oil is an ingredient, it will mix less readily)
  • fresh ginger, finely chopped: 2-3 t
  • soy sauce: 1.5 to 2.5 T
  • Tabasco sauce: 1/2 - 1 t (optional)
  • garlic: 1 med. clove, minced
  • lime juice: 2 T (adds an essential flavor, but also helps with preservation, if sauce sits too long in fridge) - lemon juice may be substituted, but lime is better
  • hot water: 2/3 c
  1. In a container that will hold 2-4 cups, add all ingredients except the hot water.
  2. Add lime juice, then hot water in 3 T increments, mixing well after each addition. The peanut butter mixture will go through quite a transformation before it settles down into a sauce. Have faith and just keep mixing - a fork is an excellent mixing tool for this. Press it down into the peanut butter mixture.

ALTERNATIVELY, put all ingredients into a 1 pint glass measuring cup, and use a single beater from a hand mixer, or a wand blender, to blend the sauce rapidly.

It may be used immediately, but the flavors blend better if allowed to sit for a day in the refrigerator.

This SAUCE freezes very well, but when thawing it, don’t cook it by overheating it - this will alter the flavor.

 

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