What is Satay Sauce? (2024)

FAQs

What is satay sauce made of? ›

The prominent ingredient of a satay sauce is peanuts, alongside soy sauce, salt, garlic, coconut, chilli, onion and lemon are added for a fragrant taste. Delicious meat skewers called Satay and its popular peanut sauce are well known in most cities around the world.

Although commonly associated with Thai cuisine, peanut sauce actually originated in Indonesia (source). What Americans know as peanut sauce is more commonly referred to as satay sauce (or bumbu kacang) in Indonesia, because it's most often served with the popular Indonesian dish, satay (skewered, grilled meats).

Satay is not spicy, but more on the salty, savory, tangy, sweet side with a rich peanut flavor. However, it does have a gentle kiss of heat thanks to the Asian chili sauce in the marinade. If you'd like it spicier, add additional chili sauce; for less spicy, add less chili sauce.

As a dip: Serve satay sauce as a dip for raw or grilled vegetables, chicken skewers, tofu, shrimp or spring rolls. As a marinade: Use the satay sauce as a marinade for meat, chicken or tofu before cooking. Let marinate for at least an hour or overnight for a more intense flavor.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word satay is derived from the Malay word satai, also saté or sate in Indonesian, ultimately originating from Tamil catai (சதை, a regional variant of tacai meaning 'flesh'.

Satays are usually served with a spicy-sweet peanut sauce. Instead of dunking each skewer, put a little on your plate. Two tablespoons of the sauce serve up 80 calories and nearly 10% of all the sodium you should get in a day.

For the satay sauce, heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the curry paste and cook for a minute until fragrant. Next, add the coconut milk, peanut butter, fish sauce and sugar, then stir through the crushed roasted peanuts (roasting them beforehand gives you a lovely rich flavour).

Japanese chicken satay, also known as yakitori, is a popular dish in Japan that consists of small pieces of chicken skewered and grilled over a charcoal fire.

White bread, for serving, yes! You might be surprised but in Thailand it is very common for satay to come with toasted white bread. You dip the bread in the peanut sauce and eat alongside the satay, and if there's any sauce left after the satays are gone, use the bread to sop up the rest!

What is satay in English? ›

noun. a Southeast Asian, especially Indonesian and Malaysian, dish of marinated, bite-size pieces of meat, skewered, barbecued, and usually served with a peanut-flavored dipping sauce.

It is an essential condiment used with a good number of Indonesian dishes, and is either served as a dipping sauce or added to the main ingredients of a recipe to get a more pleasing taste.

Sate (or more commonly known as Satay) is undoubtedly one of Indonesia's most famous dishes. It is also one of those dishes that most South East Asian countries claim as their own.

So I had to look this up but the difference between a satay and kebabs is that satays are usually served with sauces and are traditionally eaten right off of the skewers. The meat that is skewered for satays is smaller (at least in this case!) and therefore cooks even quicker than a shish kebab — right up our alley.

First up, semantics. Sate doesn't actually mean spicy peanut sauce, though we tend to misappropriate the term here, and other dishes have been invented that use this accompanying sauce. Sate refers instead to the skewers of meat, and many variations of it come with a different sauce, and some without any sauce at all.

noun. a Southeast Asian, especially Indonesian and Malaysian, dish of marinated, bite-size pieces of meat, skewered, barbecued, and usually served with a peanut-flavored dipping sauce.

Satay sauce should be a little spicy, but nothing too crazy! It does contain chilli but it is a more mild heat. The perfect Thai satay should be a blend of sweet, savoury, spicy and nutty. It's one of the pillars when it comes to condiments in Thai cuisine, and it's one of my personal favourites!

Japanese chicken satay, also known as yakitori, is a popular dish in Japan that consists of small pieces of chicken skewered and grilled over a charcoal fire.