Gado gado

With homemade peanut sauce

Alongside beef rendang, gado gado is one of the most well-known and loved dishes from Indonesian cuisine.

The name literally means “mix mix,” which perfectly describes what makes this dish so special: a mix of colorful vegetables served with a rich homemade peanut sauce. This is one of those dishes that feels perfectly balanced.

Crisp vegetables, a rich sauce, a hard-boiled egg, crunchy prawn crackers, all served with steamed white rice. Or as you’ll often find it in Indonesia, with lontong (compressed rice cakes). It’s not only nourishing and wholesome, but also easy to prepare and simple to adjust to your own taste.

The base: crisp vegetables

At the heart of a good gado gado are the vegetables. These are usually firm, crisp varieties like cabbage, bean sprouts, green beans, carrots, and cucumber. The key is to cook them just briefly rather than fully, or simply blanch them. This way they keep their fresh bite and retain their nutrients.

The vegetables balance nicely with the creamy peanut sauce. You can also mix things up by adding vegetables like radishes, broccolini, or cauliflower. We also like to pan-fry some tofu to go with it, but that is completely optional. To finish, you can top it with crispy fried shallots.

Homemade peanut sauce: the star of the dish

The peanut sauce is without a doubt the heart of gado gado. Using a store-bought sauce is not the way to go. An authentic peanut sauce is easy to make with just a few ingredients: ground peanuts, a clove of garlic, coconut milk, kecap manis, and a touch of shrimp paste.

An important ingredient in the peanut sauce is kecap manis. This is a sweet Indonesian soy sauce with a distinctive flavor that’s widely used in Indonesian cooking. If you don’t have it on hand, you can easily make a substitute at home. In this recipe, we use 3 tablespoons kecap manis. You can replace it with a mix of 1 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon molasses, and 1 tablespoons brown sugar. You can make this ahead of time if you want the sauce to thicken slightly, but that’s not required.

The sauce should be rich, creamy, and slightly spicy, with a subtle sweetness. The key is to let it simmer gently so the flavors come together and the sauce becomes smooth. We usually use a small food processor, but you can also use a mortar and pestle if you feel like putting in a bit more effort.

Gado gado vs. karedok

This classic dish might remind you of karedok, another popular vegetarian dish from Indonesian cuisine, though less well known outside of Indonesia. Still, there are clear differences. Gado gado typically includes a wider variety of vegetables. Karedok is traditionally served with ’emping crackers’ instead of prawn crackers. That said, we enjoy both prawn crackers and emping with either dish.

Both dishes are served with peanut sauce, but the sauce for karedok has a very distinct flavor. That comes from the addition of kencur, which gives it its characteristic taste. Whichever you choose, both dishes are a great way to explore Indonesian cuisine.

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