Make Authentic Thai Dishes at Home With This Free Pantry Guide

Let’s talk about the wonder of Thai food. In recent years, a whole new tourism sector has gained traction in Thailand as people arrive from around the globe just to take culinary tours. In fact, people love Thai food so much that 35,000 worldwide votes resulted in Thailand scoring more favorite dishes than any other country on CNN Travel’s list of the World’s 50 Best Foods. (1)

So, how do you start enjoying Thai cooking on a regular basis without upping your take-out budget? 

That’s where our free Pantry Staples for Thai Cooking Guide comes in! It will walk you through the main ingredients to keep on hand so you are never far from a delicious, budget-friendly Thai meal. Also, the guide will help you become familiar with common Thai ingredients so that when you want to branch out from the everyday Pad Thai or Yellow Curry to less well-known dishes, you will be way ahead of the curve.

Download our free Thai Pantry Staples Guide and start stocking your pantry with ingredients in 9 convenient categories — from seasoning and condiments to rice and noodles!

Notes on Thai Cooking Ingredients

Thai cuisine expertly combines a wide variety of ingredients to build harmonious layers of flavor and texture. Our infographic guide covers so many of the basics, but we also want to leave you with additional info that can help you as you venture into Thai home cooking.

Budget

If you want to make authentic Thai food at home but you can’t swing all of the pantry items for Thai cooking that we listed, don’t worry. You definitely don’t need to buy every ingredient. Since our Thai Pantry Staples Guide gives suggestions on how to use ingredients, you can start by investing in some of the items that are used in the types of Thai meals you really love, like curry and stir-fried dishes.

There are some ingredients like fish sauce that are so ubiquitous  in Thai home cooking that you definitely need to pick it up. But, when it comes to soy sauce, we have a trick you can try if buying 3 different soy sauces right now is a stretch. Thin / light and dark / black are the varieties of soy sauce you will use most often, so start with those. You can always add sweet dark soy sauce to your pantry later or, if you have molasses on hand, you can try a combination of 2 parts dark / black + 1 part molasses as a substitute.

Noodles

Dried rice noodles are listed in our Thai Pantry Staples guide, which would include wider noodles for Pad Thai and thinner rice vermicelli for soups and noodle salads. However, if you want to cook up delicious dishes like Pad See Ew, you will need to pick up fresh wide rice noodles at the store, which are best kept for a few days max.

Produce

Part of the excitement that Thai food brings to the palate is its bold use of aromatics and its spicy edge. Although our infographic guide only lists items that last a while, a fair amount of fresh ingredients are necessary for Thai food to really shine. So, if you frequently use any of the produce below, you can keep them handy, too…

Easily accessible fresh herbs that are commonly used in Thai cuisine:

• Cilantro
• Green onions
• Lemongrass
• Spearmint
• Thai basil

Easily accessible fruits and veggies that are commonly used in Thai cuisine:

• Bean sprouts
• Chinese broccoli
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Jackfruit
• Kabocha
• Papaya
• Pineapple
• Shiitake mushrooms

Traditional Thai home cooking also uses a wide variety of herbs, spices, and leaves that are rare in Western countries, but if you live near a Thai or Asian market, it’s always a good idea to pop by and see what ingredients they have that you won’t find at Albertsons.

Now that you know about the essential pantry items for Thai cooking, we hope you feel empowered to bring more home-cooked Thai dishes to your table. And if you want a bit of help getting started with easy recipes, sign up for a free 14-day trial of our meal plan service to access dozens of Thai-inspired meals in our Recipe Archives. Here is a sample of some delicious and easy-to-make-at-home recipes that we feature as part of our meal plan service:

If this Pantry Staples for Thai Cooking guide is useful to you, check out our Indian Pantry and Middle Eastern Pantry guides. You can also stay tuned for more infographics and how-to articles by signing up for our weekly email below.