Instant Pot Thai Peanut Noodles – easy one-pot vegetarian weeknight meal which gets done in less than 30 minutes!
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One of the cuisines that I actually liked after moving to US was Thai. My exposure to different kind of food/cuisine in India was limited. I hardly ever ate anything other than Indian. We grew up eating homemade food everyday and it was always Indian – the same dal, rice, sabzi (veggie) and roti. That’s pretty much all I ate for lunch and dinner. When I moved to US, I was exposed to an array of flavors. These flavors were so different and I had never tasted them before. I tried a lot of new food, some which I didn’t like at all and some I loved like Thai food!
Do you guys love thai food? I think its so flavorful and its hard not to like it. While I love eating it out, I often make it at home too. You guys quite like my Instant Pot Thai Tofu Pineapple Curry recipe and so I thought it was about time, I shared another one! These Instant Pot Thai Peanut Noddles are so easy to make in the IP. It’s a one pot meal which you can put on the table in less than 30 minutes!
What makes these Instant Pot Thai Peanut Noodles special?
✓ these get done in one pot – no need to cook the noodles separately.
✓ one pot means less dirty dishes!
✓ gets done in less than 30 minutes!
✓ perfect meal for those busy nights.
✓ packed with flavors, there’s soy sauce, honey, peanut butter, sriracha and rice vinegar in there.
✓ make it vegan be replacing the honey with brown sugar or any other vegan friendly sweetener.
To make these instant pot thai peanut noodles, all you need is to chop the ginger, garlic, pepper, carrot and green onion. Once you have these chopped, it only takes 5 minutes to put it all in the pot and then let the IP do its thing. You may also add tofu to these noodles to make the meal protein-rich. Sarvesh is not very fond of tofu and hence I skipped that part.
We add uncooked spaghetti to the Instant Pot along with the veggies and sauce and it all gets perfectly cooked. Isn’t that amazing? Seriously I can’t get over the fact that I don’t have to boil the noodles separately. And they get perfectly cooked, not soggy at all. In fact the spaghetti was al-dente which means that it had a nice bite to it. If you prefer softer noodles, then you may increase the cooking time by couple of minutes. This was perfect for me.
The garnishes add more flavor to these thai peanut noodles. So don’t forget to add in lots of chopped cilantro, lime juice and crushed peanuts! If you have never made noodles/spaghetti in your Instant Pot, now is the time! And this is the easiest recipe to start with. I am sure once you make it, you will be amazed how easy it really was. Hope you guys enjoy this one!
Method
Press the saute button on your Instant Pot. Once it displays hot, add oil and then add the minced garlic and ginger. Saute for a minute until garlic and ginger start changing color.
Add in the veggies – carrots, pepper and green onion and toss to combine. You may reserve some spring onion greens for garnish.
Push veggies to the side and to the center of the pot add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sriracha, peanut butter and salt.
Whisk to combine the sauce. You may also combine the sauce beforehand in a bowl.
Break spaghetti into half and then add to the pot.
Add water until spaghetti is just covered. You may press the noodles slightly with a spatula so that noodles on top get slightly under water.
Close the pot with its lid. Press the manual or pressure cook button and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes. The pressure valve should be in the sealing position. Do a quick pressure release.
Open the pot, use a tong to mix the sauce, noodles and veggies together.
Add reserved green onion greens, juice of 1 lime and cilantro.
Serve these instant pot thai peanut noodles with crushed peanuts on top.
Instant Pot Thai Peanut Noodles
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons oil I used vegetable oil
- 4-5 garlic cloves minced
- 1 inch ginger minced
- 2 medium carrots 100 grams, sliced thin
- 1 medium red pepper 200 grams, sliced thin
- 3 stalks green onion finely chopped
- 2.5 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1.5 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1.5 tablespoons honey or to taste
- 1 tablespoon sriracha or to taste
- 3 tabelspoons peanut butter
- salt to taste
- 8 oz spaghetti broken into half
- 1.5 cups water 12 oz
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- juice of 1 lime
- crushed peanuts to garnish
Instructions
- Press the saute button on your Instant Pot. Once it displays hot, add oil and then add the minced garlic and ginger. Saute for a minute until garlic and ginger start changing color.
- Add in the veggies - carrots, pepper and green onion and toss to combine. You may reserve some spring onion greens for garnish.
- Push veggies to the side and to the center of the pot add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sriracha, peanut butter and salt.
- Whisk to combine the sauce. You may also combine the sauce beforehand in a bowl.
- Break spaghetti into half and then add to the pot. Add water until spaghetti is just covered. You may press the noodles slightly with a spatula so that noodles on top get slightly under water.
- Close the pot with its lid. Press the manual or pressure cook button and cook on high pressure for 4 minutes. The pressure valve should be in the sealing position. Do a quick pressure release.
- Open the pot, use a tong to mix the sauce, noodles and veggies together.
- Add reserved green onion greens, juice of 1 lime and cilantro. Serve the noodles with crushed peanuts on top!
Notes
- The noodles will look little watery when you open the pot but soak the sauce pretty quickly.
- The noodles are Al dente at 4 minutes. Cook for couple more minutes for softer noodles
- Adjust sriracha and honey to taste. If you like spicy noodles, add more of sriracha.
For my first time, I’m really pleased with the results. I used soba noodles and reduced the cooking time to 3 minutes which was perfect. And I agree the fresh lime juice and peanuts are the perfect finishing touches. The only change I’ll make next time is adding a bit more water. Otherwise, this is a winner!
glad to know!
I used soba as well, but since my soba noodles call for half the boiling time when done regularly (just 4-5 minutes) versus 9-10 minutes for spaghetti, I just did it for 2 minutes in the IP and they came out about right!
Can I use rice noodles instead of the spaghetti?
the cooking time will change, rice noodles will probably need 2 to 3 minutes. Here’s a recipe that uses them: https://www.cookwithmanali.com/vegan-drunken-noodles/
Honey substitute recommendation??? My daughter can’t have honey & I really want to make this. What would be a good substitute?
maple syrup
I used dark agave and it turned out great!
I don’t have an instant pot but this looks so good. I’m trying to figure out how to make it the regular way.
try this: https://www.cookwithmanali.com/vegetarian-thai-peanut-noodles/
Thank you! ?
Made this today using Ching noodles.. came out really yummy.
My son kept on saying this is so good ?
Thank you for the awesome recipe
We loved this recipe with a few tweaks. First, I doubled it as I needed four servings. I cooked the veggies and then de-glazed with the water. Then I added the spaghetti (I used linguine) cut in half as directed and criss-crossed. I pushed down on the pasta to submerge. Then I added the sauce on top. My rule of thumb is 1/2 of the cooking time of pasta plus 5 – 10 minutes natural release. My family likes softer pasta. I also used 1/2 veg. oil and 1/2 sesame oil and garnished with green onion and sesame seeds. Good mixing is required at the end to get the veggies disbursed. This was a winner in my house! P.S. No burn message.
I was so excited about this recipe but following exactly as noted, my pot turned off because it burned on the bottom and the noodles were very goopy. 🙁
sorry to know it didn’t work for you. If you have a 8 qt (newer model), that’s more prone to give the burn message. Try with more water next time.
Noodles were overcooked and absorbed way too much water but sauce tasted great and is super easy to make
hmm I am surprised they were over-cooked in 4 minutes? They are al-dente for me in 4 minutes which is why I recommend the time. For people who prefer softer noodles, they actually do 6 minutes. I am not sure how they over-cooked in 4 minutes.
Way too much peanut butter! I also think calling it pad Thai is a huge stretch and it doesn’t have the flavors. I used whole wheat spaghetti which was good and came out al dente as the recipe says, then just did sauté less for a few mins to cook more and thicken up the sauce. Would be good with more veggies & sautéed chicken for the non vegetarians
where does it says it’s Pad thai? I have not even used that word in the entire recipe, it’s just Thai flavored. Funny you say too much peanut butter, while some added more since they thought it was less. Just goes to show that everyone has different taste. You can add whatever veggies you like or even chicken. I am a vegetarian and have never cooked chicken in my life so it’s hard for me to say how to cook it here. Thanks for trying!
Made this – enjoyed it a lot. I agree I never thought of this as a pad Thai recipe. Next time I will add more peanut butter – a little too subtle for me. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!
Hello, is there a way to reduce the calories? Substitute something?
maybe make this on a stove-top and use zucchini noodles in stead of spaghetti 😀