Sweet Chili Sauce may become your new favorite condiment. It's easy to make, zesty, sweet, and spicy, lasts a while and uses real ingredients you already have in your pantry!
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Here on Sweet Tea and Thyme, I figure if we can make it at home with little fuss and effort, why buy it? We were strolling through Whole Foods and found the sweet chili sauce for $4 but I couldn't really figure any of the ingredients out on the back besides HFCS and pureed chili peppers. I have a big rule of 'if I don't know what's in it, I don't eat it.' when it comes to food.
Not from an ignorance standpoint, more of a 'I don't want to drink antifreeze' or accidentally eat peanut products (allergies!) standpoint. It's a legit rule, especially with the products carried in stores not being what they seem.
Why do you need to tell us, "NOW WITH REAL MILK", "NOW WITH REAL BLUEBERRIES" or "NOW MADE WITH REAL CHEESE", people?
What was it made with before?
What exactly is 'cheeze-flavored dairy by-product' anyway?
All the ingredients in this sauce are pretty common and you can use different things for the chili aspect. The most authentic is to find some Thai chilies at a store (they have them at Whole Foods), but you can also use red pepper flakes, which is what I used to do. Nowadays, I use sriracha for color and heat. It's easy to find in the store and reduces your clean up versus getting the Thai chilies and chopping them up (and trying to not touch your face with chili hands).
Sweet chili sauce has a great flavor, sweet, savory, with a bit of spicy, and I keep it in the fridge (keeps for 2 months!) to dip a ton of our faves in. This goes with anything takeout, like potstickers or wantons, and things not takeout, like crispy fried calamari. After having calamari paired with sweet chili sauce at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, it's now my go to dipping sauce for it. Seriously, give it a try.
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📖 Recipe
📖 Recipe
Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
Sweet Chili Sauce may become your new favorite condiment. It's easy to make, zesty, sweet, and spicy, lasts a while and uses real ingredients you already have in your pantry!
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup rice vinegar
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoon fish sauce
- 2 teaspoon sriracha
- 1 teaspoon ketchup
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoon water
Instructions
- In a saucepan, pour vinegar and water and bring to a boil over high heat. Stir in sugar, garlic, fish sauce, sriracha, ketchup, and ginger, then bring heat down to medium and let reduce for 5 minutes.
- Stir together cornstarch and 2 tablespoon water in small bowl to create a slurry. Whisk in slurry then let cook for 2-3 minutes, or until sauce thickens.
- Remove from heat and let cool, then put into a container and cover. Refrigerate.
Notes
Stays fresh for 2 months.
Nutrition Information:
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 19
See you in the next post!
Eden Westbrook is the recipe developer, writer, and photographer behind Sweet Tea and Thyme. A classically trained chef, Eden has inspired home cooks into the kitchen with cultural comfort foods, easy family-friendly eats and sweets, and glorious spreads for date night and entertaining since 2015.
Sarah says
This turned out so well. I loved that I could easily make this with everything I had in the cupboard.
Seyaa says
Hi Eden.
I would love making this chili sauce. I was wondering if I were to use red pepper flakes or even Thai chili’s what would be the quantities? Btw I buy my chili sauce from Trader Joe’s and we go through it rather fast. I’m so happy I could make it instead.
The amount really depends on how hot you like your sweet chili sauce. Sriracha is pretty low in Scoville Units, about 1,000-2,500 units, while things like Thai chilis range from 50,000-100,000 units and fresh red pepper flakes range from 30,000-50,000 units. So stay under a half-teaspoon's worth for both (and remove the seeds and membrane from the Thai chilis) unless you really want your sauce to be very spicy.