Pad thai, phat thai, or phad thai, is a stir-fried rice noodle dish commonly served as a street food in Thailand as part of the country's cuisine. It is typically made with rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, a scrambled egg, and bean sprouts. The ingredients are fried in a wok.
Street stall pad thai from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand
Ingredients for pad thai
Rice noodles, or simply rice noodle, are noodles made with rice flour and water as the principal ingredients. Sometimes ingredients such as tapioca or corn starch are added in order to improve the transparency or increase the gelatinous and chewy texture of the noodles. Rice noodles are most common in the cuisines of China, India and Southeast Asia. They are available fresh, frozen, or dried, in various shapes, thicknesses and textures. Fresh noodles are also highly perishable; their shelf life may be just several days.
Thin rice noodles in dried form
A rice noodle dish in a pan
Closeup of pad thai, a Thai dish made from rice noodles
Boiled rice noodles