Our Favourite Recipes for a Thai-inspired Fakeaway Night

Next time you fancy a tasty Thai-style meal, save yourself a few pennies (and more than a few calories) and try recreating your favourite takeaway dishes at home. We promise it’s easier than you might think to bring Thai-inspired flavour to life in your own kitchen!

From spicy noodles and fluffy rice, to aromatic curries and fragrant fish dishes, there’s lots of good reasons to choose a Thai-inspired fakeaway night this weekend. 

A welcome change from your typical weekly menu, whichever Thai-style recipes you choose, they’re guaranteed to bring bags of flavour to the table (and there’ll be no waiting around for the delivery driver!). 

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Chicken Pad Thai

Starting with a classic, this Chicken Pad Thai is our take on the iconic noodle-based street food. Drawing on sweet, savoury and sour flavours, Pad Thai is typically made with rice noodles, shrimp, stir-fried vegetables and scrambled egg, then topped with chopped peanuts. 

Our lower-calorie recipe keeps all the good bits, but swaps the prawns for chicken and bulks out the crunchy stir-fry with even more fresh veggies. To get the nutty flavour for a fraction of the calories, we’ve added powdered peanut butter into the sauce, along with zingy lime, fish sauce, soy sauce and ketchup. We love to use Hellman’s Tomato Ketchup Sweetened with Honey, but if you can’t find this, standard ketchup will do the trick. 

Because it’s a stir-fry at heart, this recipe is super speedy to make. On the table in just 20 minutes, you can’t beat it when you’re hungry for tasty Thai-style flavours!

If you can’t find powdered peanut butter in the supermarket, you should be able to pick some up online. From satay recipes to sweet baked treats, it’s a handy calorie-saving ingredient to have stocked in the cupboard. 

Chopped Thai Chicken Salad

Why wait for dinnertime to get your fix of fresh, fragrant flavour? This Chopped Thai Chicken Salad is a winning lunch option that you can rustle up in a rush. Made with crisp, rainbow-coloured vegetables, juicy pineapple and leftover cooked chicken breast, everything is brought together with an unmissable peanut sauce. 

Just like in our Pad Thai recipe, we’ve reached for the powdered peanut butter – mixed with water it creates a rich, creamy paste that’s so much lower in fat than normal peanut butter. A little bit goes a long way here; mix it into the rest of your salad dressing ingredients and drizzle it over your crunchy veggies.

There’s flavour packed into every bite, with heat from the red chillies and umami flavours in the dressing. This isn’t your typical chicken salad! 

Red Thai Curry

If your eyes are drawn straight to the curry section of the Thai takeaway menu, you’ll be pleased to find out how easy it is to make your own low-calorie Red Thai Curry at home. Adaptable to be as fiery as you prefer, our recipe balances hot red chillies with cooling coconut to create a silky sauce for your chicken and vegetables. 

Instead of coconut cream (which can ramp up the calorie count), we like to make our curry using a dairy-free coconut milk alternative. This tends to result in a runnier consistency than you might be used to, but you can use Xantham gum to help thicken the sauce. 

When you’ve got it exactly as you like it, you’ll want to serve up this fragrant dish with a portion of fluffy Basmati rice. 

A food processor will come in really handy for this recipe. To start it off, you’ll need to blend your curry paste ingredients together, ready to add to the pan with your chicken later on. You can always make your paste in advance and keep it in the fridge or freezer until you’re ready for fakeaway night. 

Creamy Red Thai Curry

Like the idea of a Red Thai Curry but can’t handle the heat? This Creamy Red Thai Curry is the perfect solution. A milder version of the dish, this recipe has a richer, creamier sauce that means you can enjoy the aromatic flavours, without it getting too fiery. It doesn’t get better than this for a family-friendly fakeaway night!

Along with the trademark colour, we’ve managed to keep the punchy mix of zingy citrus and subtle spices in the sauce. To tone it down, simply let a good dollop of low-fat cream cheese work its magic – it melts into the curry, thickening the sauce and keeping the heat to a minimum. 

At 323 calories per portion, this is a slimming-friendly staple that we love to sneak onto our midweek menu!

Jasmine, Lime and Coconut Rice

A spoonful of fluffy, fragrant rice is an essential accompaniment for whatever you’re serving on your Thai-inspired fakeaway night. This Jasmine, Lime and Coconut Rice ticks every box – it’s super easy, flavourful and goes with everything. 

Where sticky coconut rice side dishes can typically be made with canned coconut milk, we’ve skimmed off a few calories by switching to a dairy-free coconut milk alternative. This adds the lovely hint of coconut that works so well with the fresh lime juice and delicate jasmine rice. 

Don’t forget to rinse your rice really well before cooking – it’s the key to a perfectly light, fluffy side dish. 

This recipe can only be found in our Quick & Easy cookbook. If you don’t have a copy yet, you can order one right here. It’s well worth it for 100 recipes that you can rustle up in next to no time!

Slow Cooker Thai Style Pork Curry

Sometimes the whole reason to order a takeaway is to enjoy a night off from cooking. Turning to a slow cooker recipe can be a great way to meet in the middle – it’s low on effort, big on flavour and typically healthier than a trip to the Thai restaurant. 

Our Slow Cooker Thai Style Pork Curry is inspired by a Massaman curry; a fusion of Thai and Indian-inspired flavours. Set aside 20 minutes to do the prep and you’ll be so glad later on in the day. Once the curry paste has been made, your slow cooker can do the rest, so you can come home to a piping hot plate of perfectly spiced pork and potatoes. 

If you don’t have a slow cooker you can also make this recipe in the oven. A slow cooker is one of our favourite bits of kitchen kit, and if you can afford to pick one up, we’d always recommend it. There are lots of budget friendly versions around, like this one from Amazon. 

Thai-Spiced Fish with Noodles

One of the best things about Thai-inspired flavours is that they equally complement meat, fish and vegetables. The delicate spices in this Thai-Spiced Fish with Noodles work well with any kind of white fish – cod or hake especially. 

A filling, balanced recipe that includes noodles, vegetables and fish for just 340 calories per serving, this is the kind of fakeaway dish you can easily rustle up midweek. Ready in under half an hour, you’ll be impressed with just how much flavour you can pack into such a simple plate of food.

You’ll find this recipe on page 113 of our Everyday Light cookbook. Bursting with recipes that are all 400 calories or less, you can pick up a copy here. 

What’s on the menu for your next Thai-inspired Fakeaway night?

We want to hear all about it! Let us know if you’re planning a slimming-friendly Thai meal soon, especially if you’re feeling inspired by these recipes. 

Head on over to our Facebook group to tell us what you’ll be making. It’s the only place to be for recipe inspiration and slimming motivation!

Why not get ahead with planning your next fakeaway night? We’ve rounded up some of our other favourite cuisines to make it easier to put together a menu that rivals the takeaway:

• Our Favourite Recipes for a Chinese-inspired Fakeaway Night
• Our Favourite Recipes for a Mexican-inspired Fakeaway Night
• Our Favourite Recipes for a Greek-inspired Fakeaway Night

Plus, you can always scroll through our Gallery if you’re looking for more ideas of what to make for dinner tonight. Don’t forget you can submit your own photos, hints or tips to the gallery for a chance to win some EPIC Pinch of Nom SWAG!