Gado Gado: A Complete Indonesian Peanut Sauce Salad

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Gado gado is Indonesia’s most iconic salad, with blanched vegetables, boiled eggs, tofu, and tempeh, all pulled together with a thick, spiced peanut sauce that makes every bite count.

What is Gado Gado?

The word Gado Gado refers to a mix of many things. I was also told that this name derives from the word “Gado,” meaning “to snack.”  So, Gado Gado can also be a snack. Although it’s a dish, you can have it as a proper meal for lunch or dinner, not just a snack.

It is so simple, yet it is so good that Gado Gado has become popular worldwide and has seen a variety of recipe tweaks. And there’s a reason Gado-gado has outlasted every food trend in Indonesia. It’s not because it’s trendy. It’s because it works.

The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism has even declared Gado-gado one of the country’s national dishes, along with Sate Ayam, Soto Ayam, Nasi Goreng, and Beef Rendang.

It is originally from Jakarta. It is traditionally made with blanched Kangkung (water spinach), Kacang Panjang (yardlong beans), carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts, fresh raw lettuce, cucumber, boiled eggs, and potatoes. And it’s topped up with spicy peanut sauce as its dressing and garnished with Kerupuk (prawn crackers).

Often, Lontong or Ketupat is added to the salad, so it becomes a meal in its own right. 

Gado-Gado was one of the street foods I enjoyed a lot. Maybe because I love vegetables and I love peanuts. So, how it mixes the peanut sauce over a bunch of vegetables is too tempting for me. I can’t recall saying no to Gado-Gado whenever I was offered this Indonesian salad.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• The peanut sauce is the kind you’ll want on everything. Made from scratch with roasted peanuts, tamarind, palm sugar, and chili, it has real depth. Sweet, sour, spicy, savory, all at once. Once you make it fresh, the jarred version stops making sense.
• It’s a complete, balanced meal. Tofu and tempeh bring the protein. Potatoes and rice cakes add substance. The vegetables cover your greens. You’re not building a side dish, you’re building a full plate that doesn’t leave you hungry.
• Every component can be prepped in advance. Blanch the vegetables, fry the tofu, boil the eggs, and make the sauce, all separately and in advance. Assembly takes minutes. This makes it genuinely practical for weekday cooking or feeding a group.
• The texture variety keeps it interesting. Crunchy cucumber and bean sprouts. Soft potatoes. Silky tofu. Tender greens. No two bites are identical, which is exactly why people keep eating past the point of being full.
• Naturally gluten-free and adaptable. The core recipe is already gluten-free. Swap or skip any vegetable based on what’s in season or what you have; the peanut sauce carries the dish regardless.
• It scales effortlessly for a crowd. Lay everything out separately and let people build their own plate. It’s one of those meals that looks impressive on a table but requires no last-minute stress at the stove.
• Tamarind is non-negotiable in the sauce. It’s what gives the peanut sauce its brightness and stops it from feeling heavy. Don’t skip it or substitute with more lime juice; the flavor profile changes significantly. Worth seeking out at an Asian grocery store.

The Way You Enjoy Gado-Gado

You can enjoy Gado-Gado on its own as a salad. But originally, the Indonesians enjoyed Gado-Gado with carbs like plain rice or hard-boiled rice called Ketupat or Lontong.

In Indonesia, rice is the main staple. People have everything with rice. They enjoy any dishes with rice. They even have noodles with rice. Like double carbs, if you like.

When you serve Gado-Gado as a salad, here is the traditional menu option Indonesians would have. This menu often appears at family gatherings and special occasions, such as weddings and other events.

Recommended Menu to Serve With

• Chicken and sweetcorn soup, or
• Gado-Gado
• Indonesian sweetcorn fritters – perkedel jagung.
• Perkedel kacang Hijau – Indonesian mung bean fritters.
• Ayam Goreng Bumbu (spicy fried chicken), or
• The best Indonesian sweet soy chicken.
• Sate Ayam (chicken satay), or
• Lamb Satay (copycat of Indonesian Sate Kambing).
• Cap cay (cauliflower and dried-bean curd stir-fry).
• Agar-agar milk pudding, or
• Chocolate mousse pudding. 

It Can Be Made Vegan Too

Apart from a tiny bit of shrimp paste mixed into the peanut sauce, Gado-Gado is a vegan-friendly dish. As every ingredient it uses is plant-based.

So, if you’re a vegetarian/ vegan,  you can still enjoy Gado-Gado. All you do is skip the shrimp paste or use the vegan version of this ingredient. 

What You Need to Make 

The recipe I’m sharing here is pretty original. It is based on Gado-Gado sold by native Jakartan (Betawi people) and the food hawkers in Jakarta. I try to base it on a real street-food recipe.

Hence, the ingredients are pretty simple, easy-to-find staples for most people. 

When it comes to vegetable choice, you can choose any that you like. As a reference, the traditional Gado-Gado uses the following ingredients:

• Kangkung (water spinach), you can replace it with regular spinach.
• White cabbage.
• Bean sprouts.
• Yardlong beans, you can substitute them with green beans.
• Carrots.
• Potatoes.
• Tempeh and/or
• Tofu.
• Boiled eggs.
• Peanut sauce dressing. It contains fried peanuts, chilies, garlic, tamarind, palm sugar, boiled potato, Terasi (dried shrimp paste), salt, and water. 
• Kerupuk (onion or prawn crackers).

Some places (such as restaurants) do Gado-Gado with an improvised peanut sauce mixed with peanut butter and coconut milk. The idea is to enhance the sauce’s creaminess and add extra flavor. 

But in this recipe, I’m sharing a street-food-style Gado Gado. It uses whole peanuts and fewer spices, just like when I buy this yummy salad mix from the native Jakartan.

As for the vegetables, you can change or add any you love. I recommend trying radish, sweetcorn kernels, and other varieties of salad leaves such as kos lettuce, romaine, endive, watercress, arugula (wild rocket), baby spinach, etc.

Note that I put boiled potatoes to make the peanut sauce. That’s what the traditional recipe uses to help make the sauce creamier, smoother, and thicker. But you can exchange this boiled potato with peanut butter if you prefer. I do that sometimes.

How to Make Gado-Gado

If you use the vegetables as in the traditional Gado-Gado mentioned above, you must blanch them first. 

Lightly boil the veggies for a few minutes, drain, and set aside.

Boil the eggs and potatoes. Set aside.

Wash and rinse the lettuce, cut, and set aside.

Lightly fry the tofu until lightly golden.

Next, make the peanut sauce by using a blender or food processor. Place all the sauce ingredients in the blender/food processor, i.e., peanuts, peanut butter or boiled potato (if using), chilies, garlic, tamarind paste, salt, Terasi (dried shrimp paste), sugar, lime juice, and water. 

Blend/process it until it becomes a smooth, creamy sauce. The consistency should be like heavy cream (double cream).

If needed, taste the sauce and add flavorings such as salt, sugar, and chilies. Your sauce should taste salty, spicy, and sweet, with a hint of tanginess. You can adjust it according to your taste, especially regarding the chilies. 

Lastly, you assemble the Gado-Gado by arranging all the vegetables, tofu, and egg on your plate. Then drizzle the sauce and enjoy it with crispy prawn or onion crackers.

Top Tips for Making Gado-Gado

• Sambal Terasi adds a punch of flavor to the peanut sauce. You can make it your own sambal, as I explain in this Sambal Goreng Terasi recipe. If you don’t have this sambal, you can replace it with more chilies and Terasi (dried shrimp paste), using twice as much as the recipe calls for. Or you can add it as you go along while trying the sauce. And adjust it according to your taste.
• Make sure you don’t boil the vegetables for too long. You don’t want mushy and soggy vegetables. It’s a no-no. The best is when they still have a bit of crunchiness as you bite. 
• Please get the Indonesian sweet soy sauce as the flavor and taste suit you better. I tried non-Indonesian soy sauce in the past. Unfortunately, its taste didn’t suit my Indonesian food recipes. 
• You can make your tamarind paste. The quickest way is to soak dried tamarind blocks in boiling water until they soften. 
• If you have time, I’d recommend frying the raw peanuts for the sauce. Because the flavor is much better. But ready-made roasted salted peanuts, like the ones you get from the shop, will do the job just fine. The difference is that the latter is drier and less creamy than the fried peanuts. Therefore, a spoon or two of peanut butter can help.