Wok Creations: Pad Thai product reviews

I personally like a decent pad thai but have never made it at home before. So I was excited when I saw that Maggi had a Pad Thai mix in their new sauces. If I could make a Pad Thai at home it would definitely make for a happy family and more money in my pocket.

I made sure that I used all the ingredients that I was use to getting in my fast food pad thai so that I could compare the taste. I added chicken, sprouts, nuts, lemon juice and carrots. On the completion of this dish I was not very happy with the look of it. It was very gluggy and did not seem very moist. I then tasted it and although it was an okay flavour and was eaten by the family - it was not particularly enjoyed and I would not call it a pad thai that I was use to.

It was very easy to make and I am thinking that if there was a bit more moisture in this mix then it maybe a sauce I would buy in the future, however for now I will stick to the traditional Pad Thai made by the professionals.

Once again Wattie's another easy meal to throw together after a busy working night. This new creations range is just amazing me and it get's better and better each time I try a new one. These are definately top of the shopping list each week.

This time around I gave the Pad Thai a whirl. Having had Pad Thai a few times before I was hoping it would be just as good as from the Thai takeaways. I was wrong. It was even BETTER than from the Thai takeaways. I followed the recipe bang on and used the chicken. I also added in peanut butter which was optional and I was glad I did as it brought out a whole new texture to the dish. It wasn't too sweet, not too sour, not too spicy it was just perfect. I added in a mixture of vegetables and a few snow peas to finish off and I thought it was the perfect amount.

As for the flat noodles it asked for I had trouble finding anything remotely similar at the supermarket so just used the normal egg noodles that I would use in a stir fry and these worked perfectly fine. Another hit here in our household even the toddler demolished it!

When I first took this out of my parcel I was a bit surprised at the size of it, in comparison to the other sauces it's only 210g, not the usual 375g but I had to give it a go and decided I would stick to the package as much as I could.

I didn't have any flat rice noodles at home, but since I buy most of my noodles from the local asian shop the texture and flavour would be similar enough, so I went with those, which only need a couple of minutes cooking time so they were left till last. Since the girls in our family don't do seafood we went with vegetarian chicken, cutting it up a bit for smaller pieces and cooked that up with some onion. I then decided that I would add in the optional egg now, cracking it in and mixing it through before adding some diced carrot, spring onion and the sauce.

When it was all finished I threw in some peanuts and bean sprouts, forgoing the lime or lemon juice as we didn't have any, and served while hot on the thin noodles. With the packet stating mild to medium I gave the kids more noodles than sauce and the balance worked out well for them. My husband and I enjoyed the dish, and whilst it wasn't the worst we've tasted it wasn't as good as some Pad Thai I've had, but a good sauce for at home.

Fridays are hectic with both girls activities all day. I don't get home till 5.30 and am usually lucky to get 5minutes sit down. Watties is FANTASTIC for such a day. Instead of buying takeaways it takes less than half an hour to put something yummy, somewhat healthy on the table. Both girls are tired and are ready for bed early on a Friday so I need to be on to it.

I have never made Thai before and so was not quite sure what to expect. Having made homemade stirfrys before I knew I had to get all of the ingredients cut and ready to throw into the wok when the time is right. So cut up some onions, carrots, spring onion. I had brought some prawns from the supermarket on the way home so they were ready to go. The recipe asks for Dry Flat Rice Noodles which I could not find so instead used noodles we had at home already. Throwing everything into the wok was so nice and quick and when I added the sauce the fragrance was divine.

Dishing the dinner up it looked rather dark and not really that appetising but then I guess most stirfrys don't look that great. My baby took one look at it and said she did not want but we insisted she tried a couple of mouthfalls but she was positive she would not like and so instead had something else to eat. My eldest loved it. She has been hating shrimps for sometime and loved them in the stiryfry and asked for more. My husband and I both thought it was ok. Just a normal stirfry really. I think if I made again would add some pineapple as love that with shrimps.

I have never had Thai food before, so this was the last of the Watties sauces that we were sent to review that we tried. Because I have never had Thai food before, we followed the packet to the letter However I admit that I have never had rice noodles before either, so we did have to google how to prepare them in order to add to the dish, as the packet we purchased did not have directions on it (a review needed there I believe). Once we had googled how to prepare the noodles, and got them soaking we were ready to prepare the rest of the dish.

So like all the other Watties sauces, these are easy to prepare, easy to cook and do not take long at all. We are absolutely loving them. They are so full of flavour, and you really are left feeling like a chef Okay so we didn't really follow completely to the letter, as the packet says to use chicken or prawns, but we actually used lamb. For the veges we stuck to the ones listed on the back, but did not use any of the optional extras - I actually believe this might have been a mistake, because there just did not seem to be enough veges in the dish once it was cooked. However that aside, wow, this is really yummy.

The flavours are rich and neither to sweet, nor to sour. All three of my kids loved it and all wanted more (but sadly there was no more). So with this in mind, if we were to make it again, we would definitely need to double the amount used and also use two packets (and we are only a family of 5). We would also need to add more veges to it too, so maybe the optional extras would be great not being just optional. The sauce is not to runny or thin either, but nice and thick and so coats the veges and noodles perfectly. It also has a really nice aroma, that on a cold winters night, really makes you feel warm and cosy. All in all this is a really great dish. In terms of time, I would not recommend it as one to use if you are in a rush, unless you use fresh rice noodles and not packet ones, or you have a secret for preparing the noodles quickly.

Watties Creations Sauces are a must have for any pantry/cupboard, and in comparison to most 'just add sauces' they are really great value for money. Easy to follow instructions, and probably in terms of flavour and uses much cheaper than most sauces on the market. I would highly recommend to anyone who is on a strict budget too, as they wont break the bank, and are a nice addition flavour wise to any meal really.

I love Thai food but have to say Pad Thai is one dish I have never tried before as I tend to always go for Thai green curry so I was really keen to give the Pad Thai a try.

Once again Watties creations were simple easy to make up. Throw in meat, onion stir fry and then add any suggested extras and simmer for a few minutes. This range continues to be a big hit with me as working full time I like quick, simple, tasty, fresh meals when I get home late. The pouch says to use rice noodles but after failing to find them in two supermarkets I went for egg noodles instead. There was lots of suggested added extras on the pouch but I just threw in Chicken, onion, carrots, spring onions and noodles.

The first thing I noticed opening the pouch was the lovely sweet and spicy aroma of the sauce. I was also a little concerned that there didn't seem to be as much sauce as some of the other creation mixes but on adding it to my meat, veges and noodles I discovered it was more than enough to coat everything. The smell while it was cooking was amazing and I couldn't wait to get stuck into it!

I really enjoyed the taste of the pad Thai but found it a really mild flavouring. There were lots of flavours going on and was a perfect mix just didn't have the spice and zing some of the other flavourings had. It would be the perfect meal for anyone who doesn't like too much heat in their meals. It's a flavouring I would be keen to use again.

Asian cuisine is something I have conflicting feelings about - some of the dishes I have tried have impressed me no end, while some are, to me, just watery fire juice with some veges thrown in for decoration. Because almost every Thai dish I have tried in the past has fallen into the latter category, this sauce was something I was really unsure about. However, the deal was "...flavours selected at random..." so when I drew this one out I was honour-bound to give it a fair go.

While it turned out NOT to be watery at all, it also wasn't fiery either, which pleased me, since one can never trust the 'spice-heat' ratings on packets - what's "mild" for a Thai may be anywhere from tongue-melting to 'just so-so' for someone else. In this case, the packet claims "medium" while I personally found it to be quite tame, almost to the point of having as little bite as a strong soy sauce. To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by it... but then I abused my taste buds horrendously for years during my time doing "the student life" in my early 20s. This has had some very long-lasting effects on my flavour-profile preferences.

While I can't say this was one I would reach for over others, my family - who have far more sensitive taste buds than I do - found it to be pushing the upper limits of their spice-heat tolerances, but also found the flavour to be something really appealing to them. Despite the predicament this creates for me as the family solid-fuel engineer, it was a good sign that I may be able to introduce them to a wider range of flavours than the ones we have become used to - nothing worse than being stuck in a flavour rut, and this packet, though not one I think we'll be buying again, certainly gave me hope and inspiration.

Overall, a nice, tame dish to make for those who want something on their dinner plate that will answer with a bit of bite back. I can easily imagine this getting used as a base for a wide range of Asian-style dishes, and it may be worth trying as a sauce for a purely-seafood meal - shrimp, prawns, fish bites, squid and some smaller shellfish, all steamed then briefly and lightly poached in this sauce for 5 minutes before being served over rice or rice noodles. Not my kind of dish, personally, but the foodie part of my brain says this may be a viable experiment.

I love Thai food although admittedly I am not too adventurous with the number of dishes I have tried but had tried a pad thai meal before at a local restaurant and really enjoyed it so was very excited to receive this to review. My partner is not a huge spice fan and whenever we have been out for Thai he has always clung to peanut satay kebabs for safety I am not a huge spice fan either but love the exotic flavours in Thai cuisine.

As far as Thai food goes at home I do quite often make a Thai Green Curry using a curry paste and coconut milk and traditional satay chicken but that is as far as it goes so I was very excited about making Pad Thai. We decided to go with chicken to make the dish and it was so easy to prepare. I am very used to making stirfry as our family love them and they are great for me to prepare after a day at work as they are quick and easy. Normally when I make a stirfry I serve it with rice so was much easier making this with the noodles in one dish.

We used the vegetables suggested with the carrot and bean sprouts and spring onions but I did not add egg my partner has a funny phobia about eating egg with chicken you see. I had limes so I added a squeeze of lime juice which really did add to the flavour. It smelt so good when it was cooking that I couldn't wait to eat it although the packet said it was medium so I did start to worry it may be too spicy!

I was pleasantly surprised that it was very mild to eat it definitely had spicy tones but it wasn't mouth burning eye watering hot which would of just put me completely off. Loved the flavours and was surprised that my partner also really enjoyed the meal. He is such a traditional eater and doesn't often enjoy anything too exotic. He has already asked me to put this on the shopping list for next week so a sure win in this house. It its a great price too which makes it something we can buy regularly.

It was great to get a sample of this product to review as it's been a long time since I've cooked a stir fry (who knows why!), and it was a bit of a prompt for me to get back into them.

The packet of sauce seemed quite small, but even so I pushed the limits and added slightly over the recommended amount of chicken (you can also use prawns), and heaps of veges! The packet lists specific fresh veges to add such as spring onions, carrots and bean sprouts but I decided to go extremely simple and add a whole (small) bag of frozen stir fry veges with similar ingredients to the suggested ones. I did add my own onion though. And seeing I was adapting the instructions anyway, I just cooked some egg noodles to stir through, rather than the suggested rice noodles. It saved me purchasing something I don't normally have in my pantry. And I was pleased to find out that the sauce was quite sufficient to coat all that.

The resulting meal was absolutely delicious - myself, my husband and our 5 year old all enjoyed it thoroughly. Admittedly my daughter enjoyed the noodles and chicken more than the veges... but everything was thoroughly coated in the sauce and that was happily devoured.

It says mild-medium but we didn't really notice much heat which was good as most of my family is not a fan of hot chilli. This is definitely a meal we'll be trying again - fresh, flavourful, a perfect balance of seasoning, and pretty healthy too. In face we'll be having it again tonight ... well leftovers anyway, as it made a decent sized meal and we'll get at least another serving for one of us out of it.

The packet looked quite small for this sauce and I was wondering if there would be enough sauce to cover all of the ingredients we had to add to make the meal. No added flavours and no added colours in this sachet is a great start for a meal for our family.

We made our dish with chicken and prawns. We added a good sized zucchini to the ingredients as we had plenty in the garden and we always love the chance to add extra vegetables to our dishes. We also added all of the "optional" options too. We didn't have any fresh limes but we have frozen lime ice cubes in the freezer, so I threw a couple of them in. We like a good limey taste to Pad Thai. All of the ingredients in the list are items that we would usually have in our house, with the exception of spring onion and bean sprouts. I had to take a quick trip to the supermarket to grab those items. I think that it was absolutely worth it to have the bean sprouts as it added a fresh crunch to the meal.

Most of the ingredients are recognisable as food to me. The only ones that I don't know are Food Acid (part of the tamarind paste) and Maize Thickener (1422). My preference is to serve food to my family that is actual food rather than a list of colours and numbers. I think that this sauce was acceptable for our family.

The taste was quite different to the Pad Thai I have made previously (from scratch). I wont say that this was nicer than my own version but it was very tasty. The packet says that it is Mild/Med and initially when I tasted the sauce straight from the pack I thought that the children might not like it, however when it was all cooked up and ready to eat, the spiciness reduced significantly and it was fine for the kids. Our four year old is a pretty good eater now, however not so keen on all-in-one dishes like this. He did eat most of his dinner, not because he loved it but because he wanted pudding! Not a huge hit with him but he ate it, so not all bad. Our 23 month old loved the chicken but wasn't too fussed on the rest. Eventually she did eat a reasonable amount with a bit of encouragement. Again, not a huge hit. My husband and I really enjoyed the meal and went back for seconds!

I would consider having this meal again even I the kids weren't that fussed with it. They have to get used to different food and the more they have it, the more likely they are to eat it and enjoy it!

After reading the below reviews I decided that I simply just had to try this sauce out for myself so when my hubby and I did the groceries I picked a sachet up. First up I have to say that the price of these sachets is really reasonable - plus they were on sale so even more of a bargain. I have only ever tried Pad Thai once maybe twice from our Thai restaurant's in town. My husband had never tried Pad Thai before but was happy to give it a try - he's quite a fussy eater so I was a little worried that him (or both of us) wouldn't like it. I shouldn't have worried - we both LOVED this Wattie's Pad Thai and will definitely be adding it to our list of meals we love.

With a new born in the house, and I am about to return to work I have been trying out lots of new recipes and ideas in order to find things that are yummy yet quick and easy to make when I will have much more limited time. This stir fry/wok creation is totally perfect for that! It didn't take me long to make dinner at all and was as simple as cutting everything up, cooking it in the wok, covering with sauce and then serving - even my husband could make this meal with ease!

This time round I didn't really follow packet instructions in that I left out the spring onions, bean sprouts and carrot but did use mushrooms, corn, onion and zucchini (more because that's what I had fresh from the garden so that's what I used)... I also had different noodles to those listed on the packet but they were called "Flat Thai Noodles" so I decided these would be fine. We did use the chefs tip from the packet and made the optional omelette and cut into strips before adding. I think this totally helped to make the meal and will definitely be including it in the future as well. Along with the vegetables and noddle's I cut up chicken breast and once all this was cooked I let it simmer in the sauce for awhile before serving.

This meal really was delicious! It was definitely a mild spicy which my husband and I were both thankful of as we can't handle much spice. There were hints of tomato but not so much that it was overpowering which I was also really glad of. The actual flavour mix is a bit hard to explain, other than to say it tasted like the Pad Thai from the restaurant's that I've tried before! Definitely recommend to others and I can't wait to have it for dinner again myself!

I have to say, I was thrilled when I found out I was getting these to review. My husband and I both work long hours so any quick and easy meals are well needed in our household and it's a bonus when it tastes great!

We started to prepare this meal by cutting up the onion, carrot and spring onions (I'm not a huge onion fan so my hubby made sure they were very small and barely noticeable). We opted to make the optional omelette so cooked that up and then cut it into strips.

The only thing we had a problem with with this meal was the rice noodles. I couldn't find the dry flat rice noodles that the recipe calls for at any of the 3 supermarkets I went to so ended up buying some Pad Thai noodles and we prepared them according to their directions.

Next we cooked the chicken and onion, then added the carrot and spring onions. We then added the Pad Thai stir-fry sauce, drained the rice noodles and tossed them through the sauce with the sliced omelette. The supermarket I went to was out of bean sprouts so we also left this out. We served the meal into bowls (and our two lunch boxes) and topped with chopped peanuts and squeezed some lemon juice all over it.

It was delicious! Almost as good as you can buy in our favourite restaurant. The only thing that was slightly different were the rice noodles and that could have been because I couldn't find the correct ones to buy. The flavour was great, quite saucy, a bit more than some restaurants serve but I thought it was perfect. We will definitely be adding this meal to our regular quick list.

I have to start by saying I love Thai food! It's a great mixture of flavours that I love. There is usually some coconut, citrus and spicy but surprising heat as well. Pad Thai promised to be mild, which was a good thing because I was attempting to introduce this to my hot & spicy-phobic husband.

For dinner, I took two chicken breasts and then cut these up in long strips. Into a frying pan I added some oil and then browned the chicken strips. I then added some noodles to soften and some vegetables. Once everything was cooked through, I removed a portion for the kids and then added the sauce. At first there seemed to be an awful lot of it but I decided to simmer it as directed.

This sauce had obvious amounts of tomato to it. That made me a little nervous because my husband doesn't do cooked tomato, but I tried to relax. I served dinner up and sat trying not to make eye contact. Half way through the meal he looked over to me and said "this is actually really good". I looked at him and it was clear we were both shocked!

Turns out that Pad Thai is just the right level of heat for him and he hardly noticed the tomato. I loved the flavour, as I knew I would. So all in all a winner. We tried to give the girls a chance to try the sauce as well, but they both turned their noses up at it. They are pretty fussy though, so that was not surprising. I would buy this again as a change from our normal wok creation flavours we get all the time.