Pad Kra Pao (Thai Basil Pork with Rice) Recipe
A few years ago, we travelled to South East Asia and took a cooking class in Chiang Mai (Thailand) where we learned to make curry, tom yum soup, and mango sticky rice. As a parting gift, the cooking school gave us a copy of all their Thai recipes including this Pad Kra Pao recipe. This recipe can be made with any protein as the base – we believe Chicken is the most common protein but any ground meat will do. For us, we used ground pork as that was what we had available to us.
One of the key ingredients to this Pad Kra Pao recipe is Thai Basil.
We would not recommend replacing this with regular Basil (i.e. Genovese Basil) as the overall dish would not taste the same. You can easily find Thai Basil at your local Asian grocery store. They typically have more defined veins/ridges on their leaves and often have thick purply stems (see photo below).
How to make Pad Kra Pao:
To make this dish, you’ll need to finely chop up some garlic, shallots, and bird’s eye chili. You can adjust the amount of chili peppers based on how spicy you want it to be. We used about 2 chilis (because we have a low spice tolerance) but kept the seeds to give it a bit more of a kick as most of the spiciness comes from chili seeds. We also added in some chopped green beans but this is totally optional đŸ™‚
In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, cook the shallots and garlic in some vegetable oil until they’re fragrant and aromatic. Then, add in your chili peppers and green beans.
Once those items are cooked, add in your ground pork and fry until the pork is thoroughly cooked and you don’t see anymore pink in the meat.
Finally, add in your mixture of brown sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce (light and dark), oyster sauce, and chicken broth (or water). Continue to cook until all the liquid reduces and starts to caramelize and the pork turns slightly crispy. Once you’ve reached this stage, you’re almost done! Just add in a handful of Thai Basil and cook until it’s wilted (less than a minute) and serve with rice.
You can add an optional fried egg as well to finish the dish. That’s it! How did yours turn out?
Did you enjoy this recipe?
If you tried this recipe and enjoyed it, be sure to comment below and tag us on Instagram @cookingwithteamj. You may also enjoy our Shrimp Pad Thai recipe.
Pad Kra Pao (Thai Basil Pork with Rice) Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lbs ground pork
- 3 tbsp oil
- 5 cloves of chopped garlic
- 1 shallot, minced
- 7 green beans, chopped
- 2 bird’s eye chili
- 1 tsp brown sugar (white sugar is ok too)
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 thsp light soy sauce
- 2 tsp dark soy sauce (for color)
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1/3 cup chicken broth/water
- 1 cup of Thai Basil (leaves only)
- 1 egg (optional)
Instructions
- 1. In a large frying pan over medium high heat, add in your vegetable oil and cook your garlic and shallots until fragrant and aromatic. Then, add in your green beans and bird’s eye chili. Cook for a couple of minutes.
- 2. Increase the heat to high and add in your ground pork and break them up to help it cook evenly. Cook thoroughly until all the pink is gone.
- 3. In a bowl, combine fish sauce, brown sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, and chicken broth. Once the ground pork is cooked, add this mixture into the pan and cook until the sauce has reduced and the ground pork has caramelized.
- 4. Finally, add in your Thai basil basil and cook until they start to wilt. It is now ready to serve.
- 5. Cook your egg in a frying pan over medium-low heat until it reaches desired doneness and serve on top of Pad Kra Pao.
