Indonesian recipes
Easy Indonesian Recipes: Nasi Goreng, Satay and Gado-Gado
Indonesian cooking is built on fresh spice pastes. Shallots, garlic, chillies, ginger, galangal and lemongrass are blended or pounded, then fried until fragrant before anything else goes into the pan. Coconut milk, tamarind, palm sugar and kecap manis, a thick sweet soy sauce, round out flavours that are often sweet, spicy and savoury at once.
These recipes start quick and build from there. Chicken nasi goreng takes 30 minutes with day-old rice, gado-gado turns blanched vegetables, tofu, tempeh and eggs into a filling salad with peanut sauce, and beef rendang cooks for about 3 1/2 hours into a rich, nearly dry curry. A Southeast Asian-inspired chicken satay cooks on skewers in the air fryer, with a quick coconut peanut sauce. Supermarket ingredients are used where possible, with swaps for galangal, makrut lime leaves and kecap manis.
4 recipes · Updated
Quick answer
Savour's Indonesian recipes include chicken nasi goreng (30 minutes), gado-gado with homemade peanut sauce (55 minutes), air fryer chicken satay skewers with coconut peanut sauce (74 minutes, including 30 minutes of marinating) and beef rendang (4 hours, mostly hands-off simmering). Gado-gado is the vegetarian choice, and rendang keeps for up to 4 days in the fridge and tastes even better the next day.
- Recipes
- 4
- Average total time
- 1 hr 40 mins
- Quickest
- Nasi Goreng (30 mins)
- Rated Easy
- 3 of 4
- Average calories
- 633 per serving
- Newest
- Gado-Gado
All Indonesian Recipes (4)
Frequently Asked Questions
What pantry staples do I need for Indonesian cooking at home?
Shallots, garlic, fresh ginger, red chillies and lemongrass go into the spice pastes. Keep kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), tamarind paste, palm or brown sugar, canned coconut milk and roasted peanuts in the cupboard, plus ground turmeric and coriander and smooth peanut butter for chicken satay. Beef rendang also uses galangal and makrut lime leaves, which are often sold frozen at Asian grocers and keep for months in the freezer.
What can I use instead of galangal, makrut lime leaves and kecap manis?
Use the same amount of fresh ginger in place of galangal, and the finely grated zest of 1 lime in place of 6 makrut lime leaves. For kecap manis, simmer equal amounts of soy sauce and brown sugar for 1-2 minutes until slightly syrupy. The flavour is a little different, but all three swaps work well in these recipes.
Which Indonesian recipe should I make first?
Start with the nasi goreng. It takes 30 minutes, uses leftover rice and teaches the key Indonesian technique of frying a spice paste before adding the other ingredients. Try gado-gado or the air fryer chicken satay next, then save beef rendang for a weekend when you can let it simmer.
Are any of these Indonesian recipes vegetarian or gluten-free?
Gado-gado is vegetarian, and it becomes vegan if you leave out the eggs and double the tofu. Beef rendang is gluten-free as written. Nasi goreng can be made vegetarian with tofu instead of chicken and no shrimp paste. Kecap manis usually contains wheat, so check the label if you need the nasi goreng or gado-gado to be gluten-free. For the chicken satay, use tamari or a soy sauce labelled gluten-free in both the marinade and the sauce.