Crisp vegetables, with the sauce clinging
The small sound of biting a green bean, the green aroma rising from cucumber, the feel of peanuts turning to coarse bits at the bottom of the mortar. Because karedok uses no heat, the water in the vegetables and the thickness of the sauce become the impression of the plate itself. Cut the vegetables ahead, and toss them with the thick peanut sauce just before eating, and the sourness and heat stay sharp when it reaches the table.
Karedok is a raw vegetable dish eaten in the Sundanese region of West Java, Indonesia. Unlike gado-gado, which uses boiled vegetables, its axis is keeping the raw texture of cucumber, cabbage, bean sprouts, green beans and small eggplant. Not a merely sweet peanut sauce, but one layering the earthy aroma of kencur, the heat of chili and the sourness of tamarind or lime, makes a flavor that makes you want to eat the vegetables with white rice.
In a home kitchen, replace long beans with ordinary green beans and the small green eggplant with small eggplants that are easy to get. Kencur can be replaced with ginger, but the heat becomes cleaner and the aroma characteristic of karedok weakens. Make up terasi (fermented shrimp paste) with dried shrimp powder, and rather than forcing yourself to gather every ingredient you can't find, decide the order of flavors you still want to keep.
In Indonesian it is spelled karedok. Kencur is also written "kencur" and is a separate aromatic root from ginger.
A "raw" plate raised at the table in West Java
If you learn karedok as one fixed formula, you get confused when you meet different ingredients. Recipes introduced as Sundanese cooking from West Java mention cucumber, cabbage, bean sprouts, long beans, green eggplant and kemangi (lemon basil). Meanwhile there are versions that add cauliflower, make up sweetness with kecap manis, or use either lime or tamarind. As long as the core of raw vegetables and peanut sauce is there, the dish has room to vary with a household's or shop's ingredients.
Its role at the table is also not limited to a leafy starter. Local recipes present eating karedok with warm rice, krupuk (shrimp crackers) and emping (melinjo crackers). When the sauce, carrying the vegetables' water, drips a little onto the rice, and the light saltiness and fried aroma of the crackers join in, even a cold salad gets the outline of a meal. At home, serve a bowl of freshly cooked rice cooled a little, and keep the crackers on a separate plate so they don't get damp until the end, which keeps the contrast in texture.
A dish with a similar name that also uses peanut sauce is gado-gado. Gado-gado combines boiled vegetables, tofu, tempeh, egg and so on, and leans easily toward a warm meal. In karedok the aroma and water of raw vegetables come to the front, so rather than the idea of cooking vegetables to bring out sweetness, what matters more is washing, draining, the thickness of the cut, and the time you toss. Set beside gado-gado, the cooked vegetable dish of Jakarta, the same peanut sauce shows the difference between "a plate that builds satisfaction with cooked ingredients" and "a plate that builds lightness with raw texture."
What is worth watching as a regional difference is not the vegetables themselves but how aroma and sourness are built. A version with kencur has a deeper aroma, and more kemangi strengthens a green, citrus-like fragrance. In households that add terasi, the fermented aroma of shrimp stays behind the sweetness of the peanuts. Conversely, if you skip dried shrimp and terasi and bring it together with just chili, garlic, palm sugar and tamarind, the aroma is lighter and the greenness of the vegetables comes forward. A version with more lime is refreshing, but if you keep adding sourness to the end the sauce loosens easily, so adjust a little at a time.
To recreate the local feel elsewhere, you don't need to replace everything with the same product. The order of priority is: (1) don't leave water on the raw vegetables, (2) crush the peanuts coarsely, not just a sugared paste, (3) build the core of aroma with kencur or ginger, (4) make the sourness two-tiered with tamarind and lime, (5) toss just before eating. If you have no long beans, ordinary green beans are fine; if you have no kemangi, sweet basil with a few leaves of shiso is fine. But adding bean sprouts that are still watery blurs the flavor before any substitute does.
Because it is eaten raw, washing does not make it unconditionally safe. Wash vegetables under running water, don't use soap or produce wash, and wipe the water off on a clean cutting board. The FDA notes that raw sprouts can carry bacteria, and suggests that pregnant women, older adults, young children and people with weakened immune systems avoid raw sprouts. If such a person will eat it, either boil only the bean sprouts briefly and cool them before adding, or replace them with cabbage or cucumber. Once heated it becomes a different plate from true raw karedok, but it is a judgment that puts safety first.
| What to look at | A West Java-leaning composition | Judgment for recreating it elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| Vegetables | Long beans, cucumber, bean sprouts, green eggplant, cabbage, kemangi | Link texture and aroma with green beans, small eggplant, sweet basil or shiso |
| Aroma of the sauce | Peanuts, garlic, chili, kencur, terasi | Prioritize kencur if you can find it; if not, ginger. Add terasi as dried shrimp powder in small amounts |
| Sourness | Tamarind, lime, lemon and so on | Make tamarind the base and add lime at the end. Rice vinegar alone makes the aroma flat |
| How to eat | Coat raw vegetables with sauce, serve with rice and krupuk | Serve the sauce separately and toss only what you will eat, to avoid wateriness |
The earlier you mix vegetables and sauce, the more water the salt and acid draw out. Stop the sauce where it seems "a little strong," toss only half of it just before carrying it to the table, and add the rest if it's not enough.
Ingredients | Serves 4
It makes four servings as a main dish with white rice. The vegetables total about 750 g. For a light meal of just salad it makes about 2 servings, and as a side for meat or fish about 6. The peanut sauce comes out a little generous, so adjust how much you toss and serve the rest on a separate plate.
Peanuts, dried shrimp and krupuk carry allergens that a vegetable-only salad does not. For store-bought peanut products and crackers, check the ingredients and the shared-facility labeling. Even if you leave out the dried shrimp, simply adding more salt makes the flavor sharp, so thin the sauce and adjust it with lime and palm sugar.
If you buy more for the core of aroma, choose things you can use up in small amounts
The parts of this dish you can make with ingredients from a nearby supermarket are the vegetables, peanuts, chili and lime. What is worth seeking out are kencur and terasi. Kencur can be replaced with ginger, but the earthy aroma that reaches up into the nose becomes something else. Terasi has a strong fermented shrimp smell and you use only a little after opening, so rather than choosing a large container the first time, a small one where you can check the ingredients and weight is easier to handle.
If you haven't tried the aroma of terasi yet, this recipe's amount uses just 1/2 tsp dried shrimp powder. It is gentler in aroma than terasi and leaves fewer bits once mixed into the sauce. When buying, check whether it is powder or flakes, the weight, and whether it has added salt or seasoning. If it is sold as "dried shrimp" but is salted, start with half the salt in the table. People who don't eat crustaceans, or who want a lighter aroma, can simply leave it out.
A sauce without dried shrimp is mild, with the sweetness of peanuts and chili in front. You can add a little miso in place of the shrimp, but it brings soybean flavor, so it is not a substitute that recreates Indonesian terasi. If someone in the household has a crustacean allergy, check the ingredients of substitutes too, and don't share the same mortar or spoon.
Choosing a tool for crushing the aromatics
If your mortar is small, crush the peanuts alone in two batches. A food processor can do it, but running it continuously makes the paste too uniform and loses the coarse bits that cling to the vegetables. Pulse briefly and stop while watching the size of the pieces.
A mortar crushes the aromatics before they are diluted with oil or water, and makes it easy to stop the peanuts at 1–2 mm pieces. Without a dedicated mortar, a heavy ridged ceramic bowl or a food processor on short pulses can stand in.
If you use a mortar often and want to decide the pieces by hand rather than with a food processor, check the mortar's inner diameter and whether a pestle comes with it. To put the 150 g of peanuts for four servings of karedok in at once, a shallow spice dish tends to spill, and a heavy bowl with a non-slip base suits better. If storage space is limited, or you only make it once a year, a thick ridged ceramic mortar or a food processor is enough.
Look at the inner diameter, the contents of the set including the pestle, the weight and how to wash it. The weight of granite helps stability while working, but it trades off against storage and ease of lifting. Whether to buy a dedicated tool is easier to decide if you think not only of karedok but of whether you plan to crush sambal or herb pastes coarsely too.
Instructions | Toss the raw vegetables last
Once the tools are ready, make the sauce while the vegetables drain. Decide the sauce's flavor and thickness first, and leave only the tossing for just before the table, and the vegetables keep their crispness.
When the flavor won't come together, separate the sauce and vegetables and restore
Because karedok completes the sauce before it meets the vegetables, you can correct it midway. Rather than adding seasoning all at once after mixing, fix the reserved sauce in a small dish and return it in small amounts. If you stack up seasoning without watching the water in the raw vegetables, it easily ends up sour but thin, or sweet but short on salt.
| State | How to restore | What it should look like |
|---|---|---|
| The sauce is stiff and doesn't spread over the vegetables | Add warm water 5 ml at a time and mix | It flows thickly from the spoon, and the mark closes in 2 seconds |
| The sauce is watery | Crush 10 g unsalted peanuts and mix into the sauce | Pieces remain and no water pools at the bottom of the bowl |
| Too sour | Add palm sugar or dark brown sugar 3 g at a time | Not only sweetness remains at the back of the tongue; the sourness comes back afterwards |
| Too salty | Combine 10 g unsalted peanuts and 5 ml warm water | The sauce alone is a little strong, but not sharp when eaten with the vegetables |
| Water came out of the vegetables | Move them to a strainer for 2 minutes and fix the sauce separately | Pour off the water, then toss only the amount you'll eat |
| Not enough heat | Chop chili separately and add per plate | Don't make the whole bowl spicy; let each person adjust |
If you replace kencur with ginger, trying to hide the difference in aroma only makes the ginger and chili stronger. Stop at about 8 g of ginger, and shave a tiny bit of lime zest to make up for the green aroma more easily. When using lime zest, wash the surface well and don't grate down to the white pith.
The amount of sauce also varies with the vegetables. On days you use more watery cucumber and bean sprouts, start with 60 ml warm water. On days centered on drier cabbage and green beans, even the 80 ml in the table keeps it thick. Sourness tends to feel weaker after tossing, so rather than making the sauce alone "just right" in sourness, stop a little restrained and serve lime on the plate; that makes a mistake easier to correct.
A sauce that uses dried shrimp or terasi contains crustaceans even in a vegetable-only dish. Anyone avoiding shrimp should check the ingredients of the products and crackers and make the dried-shrimp-free sauce with separate utensils. Also, washing alone doesn't remove the risk of raw bean sprouts, so consider the health and age of the eaters, and heat them or replace them with another vegetable if needed.
Storage and substitution Q&A
How far can I prepare the day before?
You can wash and cut the vegetables and wipe them thoroughly dry the day before. Put the vegetables in a clean airtight container with paper towel, and refrigerate the sauce in a separate container. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare advises keeping food at home at 10°C or below and not leaving it long at room temperature. Handle raw bean sprouts separately, and don't use them if there is an odor, slime or discoloration. Left tossed overnight, the vegetables release water and the texture drops, so finish it the day you make it.
I have no kencur. Can I make it with ginger alone?
Yes. Replace 10 g kencur with 8 g ginger and add the lime juice from the table's amount a little at a time. Ginger has a hot, cooling aroma and kencur an earthy, round one, so the taste won't be the same. The combination of raw vegetables, peanuts, chili and sourness remains, so it is a reasonable landing point for a first substitute. If you double the ginger to strengthen the aroma, the heat of the sauce sticks out.
Are terasi and dried shrimp powder the same?
No. Terasi is a fermented shrimp paste with a strong moist fermented aroma and saltiness. Dried shrimp powder is a substitute that adds a dry seafood savor, and its aroma is gentler. If you use terasi, warm a little in a dry pan to bring out its aroma, cool it and crush it. Start with 3 g of dried shrimp powder, check the product's salt labeling and adjust the salt.
Can people who dislike heat eat it?
Halve the red chili and remove the seeds to lower the heat. Rather than hiding the heat by sweetening the whole sauce, setting chili on a separate dish and letting people add it later keeps the aroma of kencur and tamarind. For children or people sensitive to heat, set aside their portion of sauce before adding the chili, and don't mix it in the same mortar.
What can I substitute if I have a peanut allergy?
Sunflower seeds or cashews can give a similar thickness, but that does not make it safe for a nut allergy. Check product labeling, and if someone at home has an allergy, separate the sauce and utensils used with peanuts. A seed sauce departs from karedok's classic taste, so rather than serving it as the same dish, it is safer to treat it as a different dish, a dressed vegetable plate.
Is there a way to make it without buying a mortar?
Yes. With a thick ridged ceramic bowl, crush the aromatics first and add the peanuts in two batches. With a food processor, pulse in short 5-second bursts, wipe the sides once, and stop when 1–2 mm pieces remain. If you make it once a year, the tools you have are enough. If you will also crush sambal, curry spices or herb pastes coarsely, a heavy granite mortar starts to make sense.
Sources
- Healthy and Tasteful Karedok Recipe - Unilever Food Solutions Indonesia (accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
- Indonesian Javanese Raw Veggie Salad (Karedok) Recipe - Samsung Food (accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
- Karedok - Dapur KOBE (accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
- Karedok - Resep Masakan Indonesia (accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
- Selecting and Serving Produce Safely - U.S. Food and Drug Administration (accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
- Preventing Food Poisoning at Home - Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (Japan) (in Japanese; accessed and checked 4 September 2026)
