Spicy sweet chili sauce has spicy, sour, sweet, and umami flavors. This Asian condiment is super easy to make from scratch and tastes better than bottled stuff. A great condiment for dipping spring rolls, potstickers, shrimp, or southern fried chicken.
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All you need is readily available pantry ingredients and 10 minutes to make homemade chili garlic sauce.
Homemade is always the best. It’ll cost less when made at home, plus you have total control over the flavors you want to enhance and the quantity to make depending on the usage.
This Thai-style dipping sauce is best served with southern fried chicken, fried coconut shrimp, drizzled over pineapple fried rice, and more.
This Asian sweet chili garlic sauce is commonly made of peppers (fresh Thai chilies or red jalapenos or dried red chili flakes), sugar, salt, garlic, and rice vinegar thickened with slurry.
Ingredients
- Chilies – Dried red chili flakes or Fresh Thai red chilies can be used.
- Garlic – loads of it.
- Sugar – White granular sugar is best. Feel free you use honey instead of sugar.
- Rice Wine Vinegar – or any white vinegar would work.
- Soy sauce – To keep it healthier use low sodium light soy sauce.
- Fish Sauce – optional, can be added for packing in more flavors.
- Corn Starch – thickening agent. Corn starch slurry is added in the last.
Variations
You can add fresh grated ginger to the sauce. Cook it along with minced garlic.
Red chili flakes are best. You can also use fresh Thai red chilies (you might have to reduce the amount as Thai chilies are spicier), or use red fresno chilies for mild heat. So choose your peppers correctly depending on what you want your sauce to taste like.
I like my sweet & chili sauce a little more to the spicier side. Adjust chilies as per your spice level tolerance.
The type of chili you use will alter the spice levels of the sauce.
Note – Do try to keep the seeds from few chilies (if not all seeds, at least from few chilies).The sauce needs a level of heat in it.
Step-by-step Instructions
Step 1: Except cornstarch slurry add all ingredients into a saucepan.
Step 2: Bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to low and boil for 3 to 5 minutes. Stir frequently.
Step 3: Whisk corn starch in water until no lumps are seen. Slowly pour corn starch slurry while constantly stirring. Let it boil for 5 minutes more on low heat and keep stirring regularly.
Step 4: Once the sauce reaches it’s desired thick consistency, turn off flame and let it cool completely before you transfer to air tight containers.
Note – Sauce thickens even more as it cools down.
You can store chili sauce in air-tight glass jars in refrigerator for a month. Make sure you use clean dry spoon every time you use the sauce.
Best Tips
- You can add fresh grated ginger to the sauce. Cook it along with minced garlic.
- The spiciness of this sauce depends on the variety of dried chilies that you use. If using Thai bird eye chili, handle them with caution as it is hot.
- The sauce can be used in stir-fry recipes, can be used as a dipping sauce for dumplings, spring rolls, and baked potato wedges, or drizzled over soups, and salads.
Serving suggestions
- You can use it as a marinade for seafood or meat – it goes great with shrimp and fish.
- It’s a lip-smacking combination with instant pot chicken wings.
- It’s popularly served with spring rolls or fried shrimp.
- Use it with stir-fried vegetables.
- Stir it with chowmein or noodles.
- Whisk it with mayonnaise to make irresistible spicy sweet creamy appetizer dips.
- Drizzle over cheese spread and us it to scoop out spread for chips.
- Drizzle it over lettuce wraps.
- I would even drizzle over soup!
Storage
Allow the sauce to cool completely. Transfer to a clean, dry air-tight container and store it in the fridge for up to 1 month.
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📋Irresistible Spicy Sweet Chili Sauce
Ingredients
- ½ cup rice vinegar
- ½ cup water
- 1 cup white granuler sugar
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce or gluten free tamari sauce
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce optional
- 6 teaspoons red chili flakes or 3 Thai birds eye chili peppers with seeds
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- To make your own sweet chili sauce, simply add in all ingredients except corn starch slurry into a sauce pan. Bring it to boil. Let everything boil for 3 to 5 minutes slow and steady.
- Then reduce flame to low, slowly add corn starch slurry (corn starch whisked with water) with constant stirring. Let it boil for 5 minutes more on very low flame and keep stirring regularly.
- Once sauce reaches it’s desired thick consistency, turn off flame and let it cool completely before you transfer to air tight containers.
- Note: The sauce thickens as it cools down.
- You can store sweet chili sauce in air tight bottles or glass jars in refrigerator for many months. Make sure you use clean dry spoon every time you open the bottle to use the sauce.
Video
Notes
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- You can add fresh grated ginger to the sauce. Cook it along with minced garlic.
- The spiciness of this sauce depends on the variety of dried chilies that you use. If using Thai bird’s eye chili, handle them with caution as it is hot.
- The sauce can be used in stir-fry recipes, can be used as a dipping sauce for dumplings, spring rolls, and wedges, or drizzled over soups, and salads.
Nutrition
Created by Jyothi Rajesh
Thank you for stopping by.
I’m Jyothi Rajesh (Jo for short) and i’m the founder of the food blog, Curry Trail where I share my culinary Adventures. I live in Bangalore, India. I’m a mom of two beautiful kids. My passion is creating and sharing delicious and easy recipes for the home cook. I have been blogging since 2014 and many of my recipes have appeared in both online and print publications over the years. Learn more about Jyothi Rajesh.
Comments & Reviews
hanouda says
AMAZING!!!! thank you for this recipe! my kids are using this as a dip with everything lol
I had alot of habeneros from my back yard so I used them to make this sauce. so good!!
Jyothi Rajesh says
So glad you love this recipe! Thank you for sharing
Patti Sofia says
This sounds wonderful. I have a million habanero peppers ready to pick from my garden. Do you think I could use those?
Jyothi Rajesh says
Yes, I have used habanero peppers in the recipe
JRiley says
This was just delicious and so easy to make. My grandson is a wing aficionado. He came for wings a couple nights ago and I fixed both this sauce and his usual favorite Buffalo sauce. He told me he actually likes this sweet chili better. I believe him – we had Buffalo left over but none of this one!!! Thanks so much for sharing.
Jyothi Rajesh says
Thanks so much. So glad you and your grandson loved the sauce!
Cris says
If I am to substitute honey for the white sugar what is the proportion, 1:1?
Jyothi Rajesh says
I haven’t tested with honey, I guess 1:1 will work
Darryl says
Stunning beautifully balanced dipping sauce.
Jyothi Rajesh says
So glad you loved the recipe Darryl. Thank you for sharing!
Rochelle says
Can’t wait to try it. I know I’ll love it in stir fry and going to try on fish tacos! And since I have faith in both of us, I know it will be gift worthy. Thanks and I’ll keep you posted.
Jyothi Rajesh says
I’m so glad you loved the recipe
Karla Baker says
What would be the proportion if you wanted to add mango to this mixture? I bought something similar in the store but it had mango and ginger and I can’t find it again. Would this recipe be able to accommodate those also? Thanks.
Jyothi Rajesh says
It’s hard to give you any measurements or ideas here as I haven’t tried including mango and ginger in my sweet chili sauce. But I can direct you to another post for hot sauce recipe made of mango and habanero chilies (https://www.currytrail.in/mango-habanero-hot-sauce-recipe/).
Lyn says
Thanks for sharing this recipe. Mine came out really dark, though. Not the clear pinkish color shown. What did I do wrong?
jyothirajesh says
Red chili flakes that you used could be the culprit. Some of the red chili flakes aren’t reddish, they are more brownish which could have changed the color! I’m guessing that. Hope this helps
April says
I just love versatile recipes like this – I can use this sauce in so many ways and every time it will add incredible flavors and taste. Yummy!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you April
Melissa says
What a deliciously easy sauce! It reminds me of the one that comes with our spring rolls when we order Thai food, I’ve always wanted to recreate it so I can’t wait to give it a try!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Melissa
Cheese Curd In Paradise says
This recipe is so easy and filled with flavor. We love to make egg rolls at our house, and this sauce is always on the table with our fresh egg rolls!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you
Kevin says
Just made this per recipe, with a custom tweak. I halved the sugar, and doubled the birds eye chilis. Ran them and the garlic through a food processor before boiling. It turned out dynamite! Still sweet on the front end, and a solid burn on the back end. Looks store-bought. Thank you for the excellent base recipe!
Jyothi Rajesh says
Glad to know you liked the recipe, thank you!
Marisa F. Stewart says
There is nothing better than a good chili sauce for adding pizzazz to any dish. I love the combination of sweet and spicy – AND I do have a great fish sauce that would be perfect in the sauce. I’m now thinking of all the delicious ways I can use the sauce. Great recipe.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Marisa
JRiley says
This sauce is FANTASTIC!!! I could eat it like soup! Absolutely perfect for wings. My kids and grandkids request only this sauce – they don’t want Buffalo or Teryiaki now. So tasty and so simple to make. Thanks for sharing.
Jyothi Rajesh says
I’m so glad you and your family loved the sauce! Thank you so much!
Karyl Henry says
I always have chili sauce in the fridge, but I normally just buy it. I love that you can make it at home, and that it’s so easy and I have all the ingredients in my pantry. Definitely making it fresh from now on
jyothirajesh says
You’ll love the homemade version Karyl. It gives you total control of the flavors, taste and quantity you want to make
Mahy Elamin says
Mmm, I love sweet chili sauce at restaurants…. Thanks to this recipe I can make my own for a fraction of the cost and without any mysterious filler. Thanks for sharing.
Danielle Wolter says
i HAVE to make this! I just love a good sweet chili sauce and can’t believe ive never made my own. what awesome flavors, I can’t wait to try it!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Danielle, do try it, its amazing