Travel with Kids

Travel From Your Kitchen: Best Authentic Chicken Pad Thai Recipe Straight From Bangkok

Travel From Your Kitchen: Best Authentic Chicken Pad Thai Recipe Straight From Bangkok

Last updated: October 27, 2026. Cooking-safety guidance and recipe context were updated; the original Bangkok story, ingredient amounts and cooking steps are preserved. Date information added October 28, 2026.

First published May 10, 2020. This recipe and the cooking-class story come from our six-week stay in Bangkok in 2019; the lockdown and “quarantine 15” comments belong to 2020. Class menus, locations and arrangements can change, so check the school’s current information if planning a visit.

Salty, sweet, crunchy, soft, and aromatic, this chicken pad Thai recipe brings together flavors that remind me of Bangkok.

When travel wasn’t available during the COVID-19 lockdown, I liked to hit the kitchen. I’m an emotional eater, what can I say? I was depressed about travel plans fizzling into thin air and working on my “quarantine 15.”

Anyone who knows me personally, or has watched any of our YouTube videos, knows how much I adore Bangkok. I’ll always be up for a plane ride to Bangkok.

While living there for six weeks in 2019, I ventured out for a day of “world schooling” with my two oldest children to take a cooking class with House of Taste Thai Cooking School. Thai food is one of those cuisines I could probably survive on for the rest of my life without much complaining. This cooking class served up some delicious eats and great company: the best combo in the world!

Getting to the class was a harried mess! We were running late, as always. We managed to get a taxi and it wasn’t until we started driving that I realized we would be in the thick of Bangkok rush-hour traffic! Bangkok is notorious for traffic.

As I watched our little dot on the map crawl along, I soon realized we would be late. The first part of the class was meant to visit a local market and was a main reason why I picked it!

Our driver seemed to be confused as we continued, rolling down his window and asking directions of others. I kept showing him the address and our location on Google maps, but it was a hot mess. I knew we were close, but didn’t know where to go.

Eventually, the driver basically just shoved us out the door. He stopped the car and refused to go on, telling us to get out. It was a stressful end to the ride; I thought the traffic had stressed us all out.

As we got out and I tried to orient myself to the street, my son realized he had left his new stuffed animal in the taxi! It was long gone, with no way to recover it. He burst into tears as I rushed to find the address.

Sure enough, when we arrived, we had missed the market visit! The other participants strolled in about five minutes later. UGH. The adventures of travel with a family that tends to run late 🙂

After the class, we walked to the market ourselves to check it out. Sadly, it was mostly shut down by the middle of the day and would reopen that night. Oh well. At least we took a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel!

Check out our video of the experience here:

Our family video: Bangkok Cooking Class With Kids!.

Now, onto making it yourself!

Ingredient note: In my original kitchen-travel series, I suggested looking for harder-to-find ingredients on Amazon and researching suitable substitutes, using lemongrass as an example. Lemongrass is not listed in this Pad Thai recipe. Substitutions and omissions can change the flavor and texture, so plan around the actual ingredient list below rather than assuming any ingredient can simply be skipped.

Food-safety note: Keep raw chicken chilled and separate from ready-to-eat food, and use clean utensils and plates for cooked food. Use a food thermometer to check that chicken reaches 165°F (74°C), and cook the egg thoroughly. See the FoodSafety.gov cooking-temperature chart. The class recipe’s timing is not a substitute for checking doneness. The original 16 ingredient entries and seven directions follow unchanged.

Ingredients for Delicious Chicken Pad Thai

Serves: 2

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 15 min

• 3 Tbsp Oil
• 1.5 tsp Fish Sauce
• 1 Tbsp Palm Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Chili Flake (taste to suit your spice preference- back down or remove if you don’t like some heat!)
• 1 Tbsp Pickled white radish
• 2 Garlic cloves, crushed or minced
• 20 grams Firm tofu, diced or in thin strips
• 15 grams Chives, diced
• 25 grams Bean sprouts, rinsed
• 200 grams Rice Noodle, soaked in hot water
• 80 grams chicken, sliced into strips or bite-sized pieces
• 1 Egg
• 1 Tbsp Tamarind Paste
• 1 Lime, juiced
• Water as needed
• 1 Tbsp Roasted ground peanut

Directions:

1. Soak your rice noodles in hot water until soft.
2. Add oil to your wok and heat over medium-high heat.
3. Add every ingredient before rice noodles into the wok. Stir and cook 2-5 min.
4. Add meat keep stirring until meat is cooked, then add the egg. Stir quickly to scramble the egg.
5. Add noodles and the remaining ingredients into the wok. Add water as needed to get the desired consistency.
6. Sprinkle more ground peanut on top if desired.
7. Eat hot and enjoy!

Be sure to tag me @7wayfinders in your recipes! I love seeing you cooking at home!

Leslie