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Spice Up Your Life With This Homemade Chinese Hot Sauce

Chinese hot sauce
Foto: CC0 / Pixabay / RANAVIMS

Chinese condiments are a great way to add flavor to your Asian-style cooking. Our easy recipe for Chinese hot sauce will add a bit of spice to your next meal!

Making your own condiments can be a complicated undertaking. Spicy Chinese hot sauce is one such mixture, but it’s worth the effort. We’ve put together a simplified and delicious homemade Chinese hot sauce recipe that takes around 30 minutes to make, so if you’re looking for an easy recipe that will give you authentic spicy results, this is the one for you. This recipe is great for preserving, too. Prepare a batch and divide it up, the perfect gift for spicy food lovers.

This recipe calls for a lot of garlic, which comes with several health benefits. You don’t want to negate these benefits by using bad quality. When choosing your ingredients, try to keep things as organic and fair trade as possible. The best option is always to use homegrown or locally and organically produced ingredients.

Chinese Hot Sauce Recipe

You'll want to use a pestle and mortar for best results.
You’ll want to use a pestle and mortar for best results. (Foto: CC0 Public Domain / Unsplash / Katherine Hanlon)

Makes roughly 3 cups of hot sauce.

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz fresh chili peppers
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • 2 whole heads of garlic, peeled
  • ¾ cup oil
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • ¼ cup vinegar
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • ½ tsp Chinese five spice powder

Method:

  1. Slice hot chili peppers thinly and place them into a pestle and mortar along with the salt. Grind and mix thoroughly with the pestle before combining with the sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar in a blender. Separate a small amount of liquid, about 2 tbsp, and place to one side for later.
  2. Crush and mince the garlic. Heat ¼ cup of the oil over low to medium heat. Add the garlic and five spice powder. Stir and let cook gently until the garlic turns golden yellow. You want to cook off the moisture in the garlic and soak up the oil, the goal is not to fry the garlic.
  3. Meanwhile, add a little of the liquid separated earlier to the cornstarch in a separate bowl, until combined in a loose paste.
  4. When the garlic is ready, add the chili mix, cornstarch paste, and the remainder of the oil. Cook gently for another 5-10 minutes, letting it come to a very gentle simmer. The sauce should start to darken.
  5. Place into sterilized glass jars. Store in the fridge for up to 3 months.

TIP: If your hot sauce is too hot, blend and add bell pepper until the heat begins to dissipate. Check out our guide on How to Make Your Food Less Spicy for more tips and fixes!

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