Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Gado-Gado
Jakarta’s "mix-mix": blanched vegetables, tofu, tempeh, and egg under warm peanut sauce.
Indonesian · easy · serves 3
prep 25 min · cook 20 min
~1064 cal · 57g protein · 112g carbs · 49g fat · 28g fiber · 22g sugars · 8g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Gado-gado, 'mix-mix', is Indonesia's beloved vegetable salad dressed in a rich, sweet-savory peanut sauce: vegetables, tofu, , boiled egg, and potato bathed in ground peanut dressing. It is one of the country's national dishes.
The dressing is the star, roasted peanuts ground with chili, palm sugar, , and garlic into a thick, complex sauce poured generously over the assembled plate, balancing sweet, savory, sour, and spicy in the Javanese way.
Sold by street vendors in Jakarta and served in homes across the archipelago, gado-gado is naturally vegetarian and often finished with crunchy crackers (kerupuk).
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and dairy- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 3
8 oz each firm tofu and , sliced and pan-fried
1.5 cups green beans,
1.5 cups cabbage,
1 cup bean sprouts,
2 potatoes, boiled and sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced
3 hard-boiled eggs, halved
1 cup roasted peanuts (for the sauce)
2 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbsp paste
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1 tbsp kecap manis
1 lime
1/4 cup fried shallots, to garnish
Instructions
1
Grind the peanuts (or sunflower seeds) with the garlic, chili, palm sugar, tamarind, and salt into a thick paste.
✎ Chef’s note
For the smoothest sauce, grind the peanuts while still warm from toasting; they release their oil and blend more easily.
2
Loosen the paste with hot water into a pourable sauce, then warm it through with the kecap manis.
3
Blanch the sturdy vegetables and potatoes, and pan-fry the tofu and tempeh until golden.
4
Arrange the vegetables, potatoes, cucumber, tofu, tempeh, and halved eggs on a platter.
5
Pour the warm peanut sauce generously over everything.
6
Finish with a squeeze of lime, a shower of fried shallots, and, if you have them, krupuk crackers. Toss together just before eating.
Jakarta cart tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Jakarta. Nasi uduk, rice steamed in coconut milk with lemongrass and bay leaf, has more than one origin story: one traces it to Malay nasi lemak carried to Batavia after Malacca fell in 1511 and crossed with Javanese savoury rice, another to what poor farmers could make stretch furthest. Neither is settled.
🗺️
Indonesia. Rendang belongs to the Minangkabau of West Sumatra rather than to Indonesia at large, and Malaysia lays its own claim; it is defined by cooking the coconut milk down until the liquid is gone and the meat starts to fry in what is left. Sambal, meanwhile, is not one recipe but hundreds, changing island by island with what grows and what is fermented locally.
🌍
Asia. Fermentation is the thread that runs the whole way across: soy sauce and miso, Korean doenjang and kimchi, Southeast Asian fish sauces, the soured batter behind an idli. Chilli is the newcomer among them, arriving only after 1500 with Portuguese and Spanish traders, which makes the heat in Sichuan, Thai and Korean cooking far younger than the fermenting underneath it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Indonesia
Nasi Goreng KampungVillage-style fried rice, smoky and sweet with kecap manis, crowned with a crisp-edged fried egg.
Beef RendangBeef simmered for hours in coconut milk and spice paste until the liquid vanishes and the meat turns dark, dry, and intense.
Bubur SumsumA soft rice-flour and coconut porridge pooled with dark palm-sugar syrup.
Browse all Indonesia recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Best assembled just before serving. Prep the components ahead and dress at the last moment so it stays crisp.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Gado-Gado?
Jakarta’s "mix-mix": blanched vegetables, tofu, tempeh, and egg under warm peanut sauce.
Where does Gado-Gado come from?
Gado-Gado is a Indonesian dish from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Can Gado-Gado be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Gado-Gado recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Gado-Gado safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Gado-Gado take to make?
About 45 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 3.
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