5-Ingredient Thai Lemongrass Sauce

The secret to endlessly delicious and convenient meals lies quite literally in a sauce. Introducing Thai Lemongrass Sauce!

Thai Lemongrass Sauce is a flavorful condiment featuring a blend of savory fish sauce, aromatic garlic, tangy lime, and fragrant lemongrass paste. This combination of flavors – aromatic, sour, and salty – creates an exciting profile that energizes the taste buds when used as a dipping sauce or marinade.

This is a convenient and easy version of the Thai condiment nam jim, inspired by the flavors of nim jim jeaw or nim jim talay. Adding this to your weekly cooking rotation will unlock exciting and flavorful low-effort meals!

Our blog post will guide you through the simple recipe, meal ideas, and ingredient substitutions. We hope you enjoy this recipe!

For more easy food ideas, come browse our collection of 5 ingredients or less recipes or 30 minutes or less recipes! We have delicious eats like Fried Enoki Mushrooms with Sriracha Mayo and Cambodian Grilled Street Corn!

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Table of Contents

Why You’ll Love Thai Lemongrass Sauce

This sauce is incredibly versatile, pairing well with a variety of proteins like chicken and fish.

Our go-to preparation is to marinate boneless chicken thighs in the lemongrass sauce, then grill them over a cast-iron pan. The result is wonderfully flavorful and tender chicken!

Thai Lemongrass Sauce offers a simple way to incorporate more Thai flavors in your kitchen!

While Thai cuisine features intricate dishes using an array of spices and ingredients, it can sometimes be daunting for a novice home cook

As a straightforward recipe, this sauce is an excellent choice for those seeking to diversify their culinary repertoire.

Ways to use Thai Lemongrass Sauce

You have many options when it comes to using our Thai Lemongrass Sauce recipe! Here are just a few ideas:

• Use it as a marinade for chicken, fish, tofu, pork chops, thin sliced beef, etc.
• Serve as a dipping sauce for grilled meats, seafood, vegetables, skewers
• Steamed fish with Thai Lemongrass Sauce! Steam some fish (salmon, tilapia, pompano, halibut, etc.) with cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, onions, and other vegetables. Once cooked, serve on a platter and pour the Thai Lemongrass Sauce over the fish.
• Prepare charcoal-grilled oysters and add a spoonful of sauce while they cook – yum!
• Serve as a dipping sauce for fried foods – fried shrimp, prawns, vegetable fritters, egg rolls
• Toss with a splash of high-quality vegetable oil and chopped cucumbers for a Spicy Cucumber Salad

How to Use Thai Lemongrass Sauce as a Chicken Marinade:

Marinate chicken breasts or thighs in the sauce for 2 hours or up to overnight. Then grill, oven roast, or pan-fry the chicken until perfectly cooked.

Serve the chicken with rice or noodles and fresh vegetables. You can also make some extra sauce to serve alongside the chicken.

Got your own way of using Thai Lemongrass Sauce? Share it in the comments!

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp spicy lemongrass paste (Read blog post for alternatives.)
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp patis (fish sauce)
• juice of ½ lime
• 2 tbsp water dilute to taste

Note 1. This recipe yields approx. ½ cup of sauce, which can be used as a dipping sauce for 2-3 people or as a marinade for about 1 lb of protein.

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Ingredient Substitutions for Spicy Lemongrass Paste

Our recipe calls for a flavorful spicy lemongrass paste made by the Thai brand Munchie’s Fine Paste.

We discovered this amazing product while browsing at Marukai, where they were offering tastings. After sampling the paste on its own and blended with rice vinegar, we were hooked!

(FYI, we are NOT sponsored by them. We just really enjoy this product!)

While most lemongrass pastes contain solely lemongrass, this Thai brand product combines lemongrass with sugar, galangal, chili, shallots, and garlic.

Unfortunately, we were unable to locate any online retailers offering this specific paste.

If you cannot find the spicy lemongrass paste, here are the best alternatives:

1. Substitute Spicy Lemongrass Paste with Thai Red Curry Paste

Thai red curry paste is similar to spicy lemongrass paste but with more complexity in ingredients. We recommend you use this ingredient sparingly because it can get really spicy very quickly!

2. Substitute Spicy Lemongrass Paste with fresh lemongrass and fresh aromatics

If you’re in America, fresh lemongrass or plain lemongrass paste is easy to find in typical grocery store.

Gather the other suggested ingredients, such as galangal, chilies, shallots, and garlic. For the chili component, look for Thai chili, cayenne, or serrano pepper.

Combine these components in a food processor and pulse until a smooth paste forms.

Recipe

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Dilute with 2 tbsp water or more, tasting in between, to reach your desired strength of salty/sour flavor.

How to Store Thai Lemongrass Sauce

You can keep Thai Lemongrass Sauce in an airtight container and refrigerated for up to 1 week. For longer-term storage, freeze the sauce into ice cubes and keep in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Final Thoughts

Capture the vibrant zest and alluring excitement of Thai flavors in this easy homemade sauce. Use it as a versatile dipping sauce or marinade for a variety of foods!

Try out more sauces like Tamarind Steak Sauce or easy grilling recipes like Bacolod Chicken Inasal!

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5-Ingredient Thai Lemongrass Dipping Sauce

Capture the vibrant zest and alluring excitement of Thai flavors in this easy homemade sauce. Use it as a versatile dipping sauce or marinade for a variety of foods!

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Course: Sauce

Cuisine: Cambodian, Thai

Keyword: dipping sauce for fish, easy thai recipe, lemongrass sauce recipe

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes minutes

Equipment

• mixing bowl(s)

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp spicy lemongrass paste (Read blog post for alternatives.)
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp patis (fish sauce)
• juice of ½ lime
• 2 tbsp water dilute to taste

Instructions

• Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
• Dilute with 2 tbsp water or more, tasting in between, to reach your desired strength of salty/sour flavor.

Notes

Note 1. This recipe yields approx. ½ cup of sauce, which can be used as a dipping sauce for 2-3 people or as a marinade for about 1 lb of protein.

Note 2. If you cannot find the spicy lemongrass paste, here are the best alternatives:

1. 1. Substitute Spicy Lemongrass Paste with Thai Red Curry Paste

Thai red curry paste is similar to spicy lemongrass paste but with more complexity in ingredients. We recommend you use this ingredient sparingly because it can get really spicy very quickly!

2. 2. Substitute Spicy Lemongrass Paste with fresh lemongrass and fresh aromatics

If you’re in America, fresh lemongrass or plain lemongrass paste is easy to find in typical grocery store. Gather the other suggested ingredients, such as galangal, chilies, shallots, and garlic. For the chili component, look for Thai chili, cayenne, or serrano pepper. Combine these components in a food processor and pulse until a smooth paste forms.

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References & Further Reading

https://siam.recipes/blogs/news/your-guide-to-thai-dipping-sauces-and-chili-pastes

https://www.foodrepublic.com/1295447/what-are-different-thai-chilies/

https://www.seriouseats.com/serious-heat-chile-substitutions#:~:text=Thai%20chiles%3A%20A%20thin%2Dskinned,cayenne%20peppers%20or%20serrano%20chiles

Posted By: Noelle Noriesta · In: Sauce