Name: Chicken Pad Kra Pao
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 25 min
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 500 g (1.1 lb) chicken thigh, diced into bite sized pieces; 1 tbsp cornstarch; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 1 tbsp water; 4 to 6 bird eye chillies; 5 garlic cloves; 1 tbsp oyster sauce; 1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce; 1 tsp Yum Yum umami seasoning (or MSG); 1 tbsp fish sauce; 1 tsp sugar; 1 cup holy basil leaves; 2 tbsp oil; Steamed white rice; 1 to 2 fried eggs

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Chicken pad kra pao is the fastest good dinner in Thailand and it belongs in your weeknight rotation.

Table of Contents

This is the plate every office worker in Bangkok orders at lunch. Chicken pounded flat by chilli and garlic, hit hard in a smoking wok, seasoned with fish sauce and oyster sauce, then wrecked with a handful of holy basil that wilts in about four seconds. Rice underneath, a crispy fried egg on top, done.

Ten minutes of cooking and most of the work is prep. The two details that separate a good pad kra pao from a sad one are the mortar and the heat: pounding the chilli and garlic together releases far more flavour than chopping, and a wok that is properly screaming gives the chicken colour instead of grey liquid. Everything else is just seasoning.

What is chicken pad kra pao

Pad kra pao means stir fried holy basil. The dish is built around one aromatic paste of bird eye chillies and garlic, one protein, and a big handful of holy basil added right at the end. It is salty, spicy and faintly peppery, with none of the sweetness people expect from Thai food outside Thailand.

The chicken version is the everyday one. Thigh gets a quick velveting treatment with cornstarch, baking soda and water so it stays soft under high heat, then it is cooked, pulled out, and folded back through the chilli paste at the end. Served over steamed rice with a fried egg, it is called pad kra pao gai kai dao, and that egg is not optional in Thailand.

Chicken pad kra pao plated with Thai basil and chillies on a blue rimmed plate

Where pad kra pao comes from:

It is a genuinely modern Thai dish, popularised in the mid twentieth century in Bangkok street stalls rather than handed down from a royal kitchen. The core of it is holy basil, or kra pao, a peppery, clove scented herb that is different from the sweet Thai basil used in curries.

Because it is so fast and needs almost nothing in the way of ingredients, it became the default order when you cannot decide what to eat. Thai people joke that pad kra pao is what you point at when the menu is too long. It travelled out of Thailand with that reputation intact.

How to make it

Velvet the chicken with cornstarch, baking soda and a splash of water, then leave it while you work. Pound the chillies and garlic into a rough paste in a mortar. Sear the chicken hard in a hot wok, take it out and drain it.

Fry the paste in fresh oil for a few seconds until it smells sharp, return the chicken, hit it with fish sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy, sugar and umami seasoning, then throw in the holy basil and take it off the heat before the leaves go black. Serve over rice with a fried egg while everything is still spitting.

Ingredients

Chicken

Chicken thigh: Diced into bite sized pieces. Thigh survives maximum heat without drying, and the fat carries the chilli flavour better than breast does.
Cornstarch: The coating that holds moisture in during the sear. It also gives the sauce something to grip at the end.
Baking soda: Half a teaspoon raises the pH of the meat surface so it stays tender and browns faster. This is the core of the velveting chicken technique and it takes ten minutes.
Water: One tablespoon, to help the coating spread evenly rather than sitting in dry patches.

Pad kra pao

Bird eye chillies: Four to six, and this is where the heat lives. Use fewer and the dish is mild but still tastes right, since the chillies are aromatic as well as hot.
Garlic: Five cloves, pounded with the chillies rather than chopped, so the oils release properly.
Holy basil: One cup, loosely packed. Peppery and clove like, not aniseed like sweet basil. Thai basil is the closest substitute if holy basil is not available.
Fish sauce: The salt and the funk. One tablespoon carries most of the seasoning in this dish.
Oyster sauce: Body and a mild sweetness that stops the fish sauce from dominating.
Dark soy sauce: Half a tablespoon for colour more than flavour, so the chicken looks caramelised rather than pale.
Yum Yum umami seasoning: MSG under another name, and standard in every Thai stall that sells this dish.
Sugar: One teaspoon to round the salt off. Thai savoury dishes use sugar as a balancer, not to make things sweet.
Oil: Two tablespoons, enough to fry the paste properly and stop the chicken sticking.

To serve

Steamed jasmine rice: Plain and hot, to soak up the seasoning. Day old rice is for fried rice, not for this.
Fried eggs: Fried hard in deep oil so the white is bubbled and crisp at the edges and the yolk stays soft. Break it over the chicken.

Steps

Place the diced chicken thigh in a bowl, add the cornstarch, baking soda and water, and mix until every piece is coated. Set it aside for 10 to 15 minutes while you prepare everything else.
Add the bird eye chillies and garlic to a mortar and pestle.

Bird eye chillies and garlic cloves in a clay mortar for chicken pad kra pao

Pounding chillies and garlic into a coarse paste with a pestle

Pound until the chillies and garlic break down into a rough, wet paste. Some texture is good, a smooth puree is not the aim.
Heat a wok over maximum heat, add oil around the rim, then add the velveted chicken and keep it moving so it does not weld to the steel.

Velveted chicken thigh hitting a smoking hot wok for pad kra pao

Cooked chicken thigh draining in a wok spider strainer

Once the chicken is cooked through and lightly coloured, lift it out, drain off the excess oil and set it aside.
Add a little more oil to the wok along with the pounded chilli and garlic paste.

Chilli and garlic paste frying in oil in a carbon steel wok

Chicken returned to the wok with the chilli and garlic paste

Stir fry the paste for a few seconds only, until it smells sharp and the raw garlic edge has gone. Do not let it brown.
Return the chicken to the wok and toss it through the paste so every piece picks up chilli and garlic.

Tossing chicken through chilli garlic paste over a high flame

Fish sauce and oyster sauce poured into the wok of chicken pad kra pao

Add the oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, Yum Yum umami seasoning, fish sauce and sugar. Keep tossing over high heat until the chicken is evenly coated and glossy.
Add the holy basil and toss just until the leaves wilt, then take the wok off the heat. Serve immediately over steamed rice with a fried egg on top.

Thai basil leaves added to the wok and wilting into the chicken

Easy chicken pad kra pao tips

Use a mortar, not a knife

Pounding ruptures the cell walls in the garlic and chilli and releases oils that chopping leaves locked inside. The difference is obvious side by side: pounded paste smells hot and sweet, chopped garlic smells sharp and thin. If you have no mortar, mince everything as finely as you can and then crush it under the flat of the blade with a pinch of salt.

Ten minutes of velveting is enough

Baking soda works fast on the surface of the meat, and leaving diced thigh in it for an hour will start to give the chicken a soapy edge and a soft, mealy texture. Ten to fifteen minutes while you pound the paste and heat the wok is exactly right. Do not rinse it off, the coating is meant to stay on.

Cook the chicken first and separately

If you add raw chicken to a wok that already has chilli paste in it, the meat releases water, the paste boils rather than fries, and the garlic turns bitter while it sits in liquid. Sear the chicken, remove it, then build the paste in a hotter, drier pan. It costs you thirty seconds and it is the difference between a stir fry and a stew.

Basil goes in last and comes off fast

Holy basil holds its peppery aroma for about ten seconds at wok temperature and then it collapses into something dark and dull. Add it, toss twice, kill the heat. The residual warmth in the pan finishes the job on the way to the plate.

Serving suggestions and storage

How to serve it properly

Rice on the plate first, chicken spooned over one half, fried egg on top so the yolk runs into everything. A wedge of cucumber and a small dish of prik nam pla, which is fish sauce with sliced chilli, is how it is served across Bangkok. If you are feeding more people, satay chicken makes a good second plate on the table.

Storing leftovers

The chicken keeps for three days in an airtight container in the fridge and it actually improves overnight as the seasoning settles into the meat. Store the rice separately so it does not go gluey. The basil will darken, which is cosmetic rather than a problem.

Reheating

A hot pan for ninety seconds is all it needs, with a teaspoon of water to loosen the sauce. Add a few fresh basil leaves right at the end to bring the aroma back, since the original leaves have given everything they had. It also freezes well for a month, without the rice.

Variations

Pork, beef or seafood

Coarse pork mince is the most common version in Thailand and needs no velveting at all, just a hard sear so it browns rather than steams. Our pork and holy basil stir fry follows exactly that route. Prawns work well and want only about a minute in the wok.

Make it milder or hotter

Two chillies gives you a warm background heat that most people find comfortable. Ten will take the top of your head off, which is roughly how it is served at a Thai street stall. Removing the seeds before pounding lowers the burn while keeping the fresh chilli aroma.

Add a vegetable

Green beans cut into short lengths, or sliced long beans, are the standard addition and go in with the chicken so they keep some snap. Bamboo shoots or sliced onion also work. Keep the total volume low, since this is a chicken dish with basil, not a vegetable stir fry.

Turn it into noodles

The same paste and seasoning over wide rice noodles gives you something very close to pad kee mao, which is essentially pad kra pao with noodles instead of rice. Add the noodles after the chicken goes back in and toss hard so they take on the colour. You will want an extra half tablespoon of oyster sauce for the extra bulk.

Common mistakes to avoid

Using sweet basil instead of holy basil

Sweet Thai basil is aniseed scented and turns the dish into something closer to a green curry stir fry. Holy basil is peppery and slightly bitter, and it is what gives pad kra pao its name and its character. If you can only find sweet basil the dish is still good, it is just a different dish, so add a pinch of white pepper to bridge the gap.

A wok that is not hot enough

Chicken hitting a warm pan releases water and poaches in its own juices, which gives you pale meat and a watery sauce. Heat the empty wok until it smokes faintly before the oil goes in. If your burner is weak, cook the chicken in two batches rather than dropping the temperature with a full pan.

Burning the chilli paste

Garlic and chilli scorch in seconds and the bitterness spreads through everything that follows. A few seconds in the oil is genuinely all it needs, and the chicken going back in cools the pan at the right moment. If the paste turns dark brown before the chicken returns, start again.

Drowning it in sauce

Pad kra pao is a dry stir fry. The seasoning should coat the chicken and leave barely a spoonful in the bottom of the wok. Doubling the sauce to make it feel more generous just gives you salty liquid soaking into the rice and a plate that tastes flat.

Frequently asked questions

What can I use instead of holy basil?

Thai sweet basil is the closest widely available substitute and works well, though the flavour leans anise rather than peppery. Italian basil is a distant third and should go in completely off the heat since it wilts instantly. Adding a quarter teaspoon of ground white pepper with either substitute gets you closer to the real thing.

Do I need to velvet the chicken?

Not strictly, but it is ten minutes of work for a noticeably softer result. Cornstarch and baking soda keep the thigh tender through the very high heat this dish demands. Skip it and the chicken is still fine, just firmer and slightly drier at the edges.

How spicy should pad kra pao actually be?

In Thailand it is genuinely hot, often six to ten bird eye chillies for a single plate. Four gives a solid, sweaty heat that most people enjoy. Start at two if you are cooking for a mixed table and serve extra chilli in fish sauce on the side so people can push it up themselves.

Can I make it without fish sauce?

You can swap in light soy sauce plus half a teaspoon of salt, but you lose the fermented depth that defines the dish. Vegetarian fish sauce made from seaweed or fermented soy is a much better substitute and now easy to find. Do not simply add more oyster sauce, since that pushes it sweet.

What rice should I serve with it?

Freshly steamed jasmine rice, still hot enough to steam when the chicken lands on it. The fragrance of jasmine is part of the dish rather than a neutral base. If you want something with more presence, a plate of golden fried rice underneath turns it into a bigger meal.

Why is my chicken watery in the pan?

Either the wok was too cool, the pan was overloaded, or the chicken went in straight from the fridge. All three drop the temperature below the point where water evaporates on contact. Cook in two batches, let the chicken sit out for ten minutes while it velvets, and wait for the wok to smoke.

Get it hot, keep it fast, and do not skip the fried egg. If you want another Thai plate with the same energy, our crispy pad see ew is the next one to cook.

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