Cambodian Spicy Roasted Peanuts Recipe with Chilli, Kaffir Lime and Lemongrass

This Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe makes a perfect snack for casual gatherings or holiday tables and is a great accompaniment to a cold beer or a potent spiced Negroni. Before sharing this recipe, I’d been making Vietnamese style roasted peanuts since we lived in Hanoi, but after moving to Siem Reap I found the addictively delicious roasted peanuts in Cambodia had a few subtle and not-so subtle differences. I decided to replicate our favourites.

When you go out to a cocktail bar in Cambodia, especially here in Siem Reap, our home since 2013, you’ll probably be served two or three small dishes of nibbles with your drinks. At a good bar, you’ll typically be served crispy purple taro and orange sweet potato chips, maybe some crunchy banana chips, or perhaps crunchy mini rice cakes.

If you’re lucky, you’ll also get a bowl of deliciously addictive Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts with chillies, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and garlic. Some bars roast their own peanuts – mainly bars within a hotel or attached to a restaurant – and everyone does their nuts a little differently; some are more intensely flavoured, others more subtle – which is our preference.

Other bars buy the spiced peanuts from the local markets, but we find those be both too salty and too sweet, which is why we prefer to make our own. This recipe makes our take on our favourite version of Cambodian roasted peanuts, which are aromatic, spicy, salty, and sweet – Cambodia in a nutshell, so to speak. It’s one of our best recipes with nuts.

Now, before you scroll down to our Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe, don’t forget, if you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, do browse our recipe archives, which are brimming with many hundreds of recipes we’ve cooked, created and collected from around the world, from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. Now let’s tell you how to make these spicy pan-roasted peanuts.

Cambodian Spicy Roasted Peanuts Recipe with Chilli, Kaffir Lime Leaves and Lemongrass

Lara had been begging me to make these Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts at home for years. So when I finally got around to it, we went to Siem Reap’s local markets and bought packets of the spicy peanuts from different stalls to do a taste test and compare them.

Because as we learnt from Siem Reap bartenders, most of the nuts served at bars are bought from the local markets. Only the best Siem Reap cocktail bars make their own roasted peanuts in-house, and it’s generally the good bars that serve food and have their own kitchens, or bars within hotels or attached to restaurants.

If you’re in Siem Reap and looking for the spicy peanuts to buy to try yourself, they’re generally sold at the stalls where they sell Kampot pepper and salt, dried spices, including the ‘amok spice mix’, dried fruit, loose tea leaves, and Cambodian coffee from Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. But a warning…

Most of the spicy peanuts sold at these stalls are made with too much garlic, salt and sugar for our liking. Plus they contain long dry pieces of lemongrass, which are sharp enough to be a choking hazard.

In some cases, the ratio of peanuts to the dustheap of detritus from the garlic and lemongrass make it almost impossible to selectively eat more than one peanut at a time. To attempt more would be to tempt fate.

Nibbling nuts isn’t much fun when you feel like you might either have a cheek impaled by a lemongrass shard or ingest enough undercooked garlic to make you brave enough to attempt impaling a vampire. After the second negroni this could be a thing. So, it was time to develop our own Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe at home.

Tips to Making this Cambodian Spicy Roasted Peanuts Recipe with Chilli, Kaffir Lime Leaves and Lemongrass

Just a few tips to making this Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe.

Wok vs Oven Tray

While some similar recipes for spicy roasted peanuts call for the raw peanuts to be roasted on an oven tray, our version of Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts are pan-roasted in a wok.

While pan-roasting peanuts on oven tray and shaking the tray occasionally while oven-roasting the peanuts can work, you have far more nuanced control over the cooking process if you pan-roast the peanuts in a wok.

Hot and Fast vs Low and Slow

Unlike some heat-sensitive nuts, such as walnuts, peanuts have a high heat tolerance and can be roasted at high temperatures for short durations to produce their characteristically nutty, smoky flavours and crunchy texture.

We therefore like to use a large wok and pan-roast the peanuts over high heat and have found that as long as you’re stirring the peanuts continuously (see below), the peanuts will cook through, be crunchy, and colour to a reddy-brown tone.

A little char is also nice, just take care not to over-cook the peanuts, as the peanuts will keep cooking once you remove them from the heat, and they can burn easily.

Some cooks prefer to go low and slow, and if you’re making a smaller batch of peanuts and using a flat pan rather than a wok, lower heat works too, it will just take a little longer to cook the nuts.

Pan-Roasting Not Frying

Note that you’re pan-roasting the peanuts, not frying the peanuts in oil, which is why the recipe only calls for half a tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Many cooks in Cambodia will use a lot of vegetable oil to make these peanuts, with some cooks even putting the oil in with the peanuts when the wok is cold, perhaps to speed up the process of browning the peanuts. This is not a good thing to do for either the peanuts or for your health.

Peanuts have a very high oil content, sometimes as much as 40-50%, so they don’t need to be cooked in much oil.

Over heat, the peanuts themselves will release oil as they cook and brown. The modest addition of oil after around five minutes in the wok is just to help the salt and sugar adhere to the nuts.

Continually Stir the Peanuts

I find stirring the peanuts in a huge wok with a silicone spatula quite soothing. I hope you do, too, because continual stirring is essential for even cooking.

Don’t be tempted to leave the peanuts to their own devices for more than 10 seconds. They will scorch. Just put some music on and enjoy a beverage while you watch the peanuts transform. I now compare it to making a great risotto.

Sure, you can leave the stove for a second, but never to answer a phone call, just to change the music or top up your glass.

The Aromatics

For these Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts, we skip the five-spice mix used in this Vietnamese roasted spicy peanuts recipe from Hanoi, and add more dried bird’s eye chillies and roughly torn kaffir lime leaves, as well as a little sliced garlic, and finely sliced lemongrass.

If you think you’ll struggle to find fresh kaffir lime leaves (check here), dried kaffir lime leaves are fine. And, of course, the bird’s eye chillies we use are dried bird’s eye chillies not fresh. Just make sure they are whole dried chillies, not crushed.

Sugar and Salt

We add the salt and sugar with the aromatics, but you could also add the salt and sugar just before starting the cooling-off period. When the aromatics and seasoning are added while the nuts are still hot, the flavours better coat the nuts.

You don’t want to add the aromatics and seasoning earlier than called for in the recipe, as you risk burning them if you have a really hot wok.

You could also add the salt and sugar after the nuts have cooled, which is how some of the nuts sold at the markets are done. You’ll recognise those by the salt and sugar granules among the detritus at the bottom of the bags when you’ve finished the nuts.

Serving the Spicy Peanuts

These Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts make a great snack on their own. They’re also fantastic served as part of the spread of quintessentially Cambodian nibbles that are served at Siem Reap cocktail bars, and we will (eventually) share recipes for the crispy purple taro and orange sweet potato chips, crunchy banana chips, and mini rice cakes.

Looking for a beverage with which to wash down our Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts? Check out our cocktail recipes, which include recipes for a watermelon mint cooler, a classic negroni with spices, a spicy beer cocktail, an authentic mojito, classic pina colada, a Champagne cocktail with a tropical (red dragonfruit) twist, and a White Peach Bellini recipe courtesy of Chef Peter Gilmore of Quay restaurant, Sydney.

Cambodian Spicy Roasted Peanuts Recipe

Cambodian Spicy Roasted Peanuts Recipe

AuthorTerence Carter

This Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe uses local ingredients such as raw peanuts, bird’s eye chillies, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and garlic

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Snack

Cuisine Cambodian / Khmer

Servings made with recipeServings 2 cups

Calories 2951 kcal

Equipment

Carbon Steel Wok

Ingredients

 

MetricUS Customary

 

1x2x3x

• 500 grams shelled raw peanuts - pink 'skins' still on
• ½ tbsp of vegetable oil
• 1 tsp sea salt - or more to taste
• 1 tsp refined sugar - or more for sweet-toothed guests
• 4 dried bird’s eye chillies - deseeded and chopped finely
• 6 kaffir lime leaves - centre torn out and ripped into small pieces
• 1 clove of garlic - sliced very thinly
• 15 cm piece of lemongrass - tough outer skin removed and sliced very finely

Instructions

 

• Line an oven tray with greaseproof paper and set aside.
• Heat a large wok over high heat.
• Add the peanuts and stir constantly, then reduce the heat to medium-low after a couple of minutes.
• Once the peanuts start to colour (this should be around 5 minutes), turn the heat up a little as you slowly add the oil. Keep stirring to distribute the oil evenly through the nuts.
• Add the salt, chillies, lemongrass, and sugar, and continue to stir well to combine the aromatics and seasoning with the nuts.
• Add the garlic, and continue to stir to combine.
• Once the nuts are a bright reddy-brown colour, they are fully roasted. Add the kaffir lime leaves, and stir to combine.
• Transfer the nuts from the wok to an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper and allow them to cool before serving.
• If there are any nuts left, store them in an airtight container.

Nutrition

Serving: 500gCalories: 2951kcalCarbohydrates: 110.3gProtein: 139.4gFat: 244.6gSaturated Fat: 41gPolyunsaturated Fat: 203.6gTrans Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 98mgFiber: 46.9gSugar: 5g

Please do let us know if you make this Cambodian spicy roasted peanuts recipe with chilli, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass in the comments below as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.