Chinese sweet and sour sauce possibly is the most famous Chinese sauce. There are so many yummy dish made with this sauce including sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour pork etc. I have received e-mails and facebook message asking about how to make Chinese sweet and sour sauce. Elaine has decided to introduce different Chinese combined stir-fry sauces so you can use them directly with your own recipe creations.
Chinese sweet and sour sauce is known as 糖醋汁 in Chinese and is a type of sauce used mainly in quick stir-fry recipes in China. Basically, the main ingredient should be deep-fried or pan-fried firstly before tossing with the sauce in wok . This cooking method is named as “溜” in Chinese which meaning stir-fry and cook very quickly.
Everyone may have a unique sweet and sour sauce. If you do not like sour taste that much, you can reduce the vinegar or lemon juice slightly or add a little bit more sugar.In different Chinese cuisines, Chinese sweet and sour sauce is widely been used. For example, sweet and sour pork tenderloin（糖醋里脊） from Sichuan cuisine, Guo Bao Rou (锅包肉) from Northern China, sweet and sour ribs and sweet and sour fish in Jiangsu province.
There are many variations of Chinese sweet and sour sauce. Some use tomato sauce while others just use vinegar and sugar directly. Following are two most commonly used recipe for tuning Chinese sweet and sour sauce.
Have a look of all of the basic sauces and condiments we are going to use for perfect Chinese sweet and sour sauce. They are green onion, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, ketchup, and black vinegar, and dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar and starch. You do not need to use them all in one type of Chinese sweet and sour sauces. Just basic information for ingredients! If you need more information about the sauces and condiments for Chinese cooking, check Chinese Sauces.
Now comes to this Chinese sweet and sour sauce with ketchup—this is the all-purpose sauce for around 500 g foods or making a rice bowl dipping sauce
You can follow the step to make a perfect Chinese sweet and sour sauce or mixing all the ingredients together for a quicker version.
- 2 middle size garlic cloves , minced
- 1 tsp. minced ginger
- 1 tsp. green onion white
- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 4 tbsp. ketchup
- 8 tbsp. water , 1/2 cup of water
- 1/2 tbsp. rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp. sugar
- 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
- a small pinch of salt if needed
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 3 tbsp water
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Heat up vegetable oil in pan or wok; add garlic, green onions and ginger to stir-fry for around 2 minutes or until aroma with low fire.
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Then pour the basic sauce to the wok, bring all the content to a boiling. And add water starch in. Keep on stirring in the process.
If rice vinegar is not available, you can use lemon juice to replace it.
This sauce with ketchup is mainly used for recipes with a bright color including sweet and sour chicken, sweet and sour pork with pineapple, sweet and sour shrimp.
Wait, it is still not the end.
Another way to prepare Chinese sweet and sour sauce: Ginger, garlic and green onions are always needed for a basic taste layer. However if the main ingredients is marinated with ginger and green onion water previously, they can be skipped.
Chinese sweet and sour sauce with darker color
- 2 middle size garlic cloves
- 1 root ginger
- 1 green onion
- 1 tablespoon cooking wine
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 4 tablespoons vinegar
- 5 tablespoons water
This is a traditional Chinese sweet and sour sauce mainly used in traditional dishes for example sweet and sour ribs and sweet and sour fish etc. However, if the sauce is used for marinating before frying, water can be skipped. Example dish: sweet and sour ribs.
When seeing a recipe calls for vinegar, you may wonder whether to use white vinegar or black vinegar, right? For some recipes needing a bright color, please use white vinegar and light soy sauce only. And for others with a heavier caramelized color, black vinegar should be the first choice.
Combined spicy Chinese sweet and sour sauce
- 2 middle size garlic cloves
- 1 root ginger
- 1 green onion
- 1 tablespoon cooking wine
- 1 teaspoon spicy chili oil or several dried chili peppers (a combination is also great)
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon black vinegar
- 4 tablespoons water
This can be used in many spicy and sour meat dishes, for example spicy and sour pork belly, spicy and sour meat ball etc.
Please note that the amounts of the basic ingredients might be changed depending on the particular recipe for example if pineapple is add as side vegetables, then reduce the amount according and vinegar should be avoided.
Wow, this is a long page and I hope you like it. Thanks for visiting.
I love the orange dipping sauce that the chinese BBQ restaurants give you when you order the crispy skin bbq pork. I can’t buy it anywhere, doesn’t taste the same. Do you have a recipe for this? I only know that there’s pineapple in it cause I bit into a chunk of pinapple.
Hi Lien,
I am sorry that I do not have the recipe for the sauce. Usually crispy skin bbq pork is served with sugar, soy sauce or hoisin sauce in China. So I cannot figure out the recipe for you. But the combination with BBQ pork and pineapple sauce is really great since pineapple is such an excellent fat solver.
It’s called Duck Sauce and most super
Markets carry it
Is there a S&S sauce recipe that does NOT involve tomato ketchup? I’m looking for a 100% home made recipe… thank you
Tom,
In that case, you can use homemade tomato paste to replace ketchup. Is black vinegar acceptable for your? If yes, you can skip ketchup and add some black vinegar.
Thank you so much . I was making sweet n sour sauce n added to much viniger but with this advice I added lemon juice garlic n ginger now it perfect thanks for saving my day and a whole pot of sauce…..
Thanks Martha for the feedback. I can image the yummy taste. Happy cooking ahead.
I’m new to Chinese cooking and don’t understand how much is 1 ginger? Peel and leave the whole thing in a chunk? grated? Sliced? Chopped? Please explain.
I get the recipe updated.
You never updated the recipe on how much ginger root to use. You just say 1 ginger. Tell us in weight or length of root.
Hello,
I am looking for a sweet and sour sauce that is darker colored and contains water chestnuts, green onion, and small red peppers. it is served with Firecracker Shrimp. Do you by chance know what this sauce is?
Thank you!
Sorry Erica. I really hope that I could help but I am not familiar with Firecracker shrimp and have never eaten that.
Firecracker shrimp isn’t an authentic Chinese dish. It’s Americanized Chinese cuisine.
What are in the bottles that you have in the picture. Just wondering so I can buy them.
Thank you.
How can I make my sauce a bit sweeter, I find it juts a bit to sour??
You can add another batch of sugar.
Curious, the original recipe uses Rice Vinegar, but the Authentic Chinese Version lists simply Vinegar, and the 3rd lists Black Vinegar. The notes mention using White Vinegar to make light sauces. Is the Authentic Chinese Version using Rice Vinegar, White Vinegar, or Black Vinegar? i am not familiar with Rice Vinegar and it’s flavor/properties so don’t really know if they are all interchangeable and just picked for final color of sauces or have distinctly different tastes. Thanks.
That’s a good question, Brendan. I will update this post and introduce the types of Chinese sweet and sour sauce with the detailed introduction on all types of vinegars used in China. Stay returned.
Can I substitute Maggi soy sauce for light vinegar?
Sorry I meant light soy sauce.
Maggi soy sauce may influence the color of the sauce. I read the ingredients on the bottom and it contains caramel color, which will darken the color of the sauce. I would still recommend using common light soy sauce.
These look great! I’ve been trying to find a recipe I had years ago, sweet and sour pork marinated in a sauce that wasn’t too sweet, no ketchup, just ginger, wine, soy and…cant remember. But you marinated the pork, rolled the pieces in cornstarch to fry as usual, then added the marinade to the cornstarch and all to the pan to thicken;made a delicious, light, clear sauce I really prefer to most other sweet and sour anything. The pork stayed crisp because you put that back in last, the veggies were all cooked perfectly, just brilliantly easy, too two bowls, one pan, Your middle sauce looks similar, but have you ever heard this style of preparing it?
I think is might be “糖醋里脊”. I will arrange a recipe soon.
What makes the sauce have nice orange color without using orange juice?
The color is from ketchup. The thickener lighten the color and presents orange color.
I am wondering if using a sweet and sour base like you started minus the ketchup, and add carrot slivers to the onion, ginger, garlic mix and sauté and pineapple chunks, at last minute or two of stir fry/sauté in as well!! And then add all liquids, the sour, either vinegar or lemon juice, and use pomegranate and pineapple juice and cornstarch water to thicken, does that sound like a good S & S sauce to you?…… sweet from the pom juice and a bit from the pineapple juice plus some acidic properties from the pineapple, plus the sour/acidic from the rice vinegar or white vinegar or lemon juice! Add sugar only if needed!
So basically sauté;
Green onion or yellow or white onion
Ginger minced
Garlic minced
Shaved Slivers of carrots…slice using a peeler down a side make about 2″ long
Pineapple chunks
Then add in;
Water ……1 part if needed ie. 1c.
Vinegar or lemon juice….1\4 part 1\4c
Pomegranate juice …..1 part. 1c
Pineapple juice 1 part 1c
Sugar if needed to taste beginning with 1tsp
Starch water to thicken 1\4c 2tsp starch if not enough to thicken add another measure as listed!
1 TBS, soy sauce… if you like it in your sauce, I don’t like much it at all, I don’t want to taste it!
?????
This is my take on it! If one cannot find just pom juice, one could use cherry pom juice!!! Or even grenadine syrup if it is easier to find than pom juice…funny they are they same but the syrup has been thickened of course and it has a bit of lemon and orange flower water in there also!!! So either would work!!!
I have a family to cook for and even this quantity gets gobbled up quick!! I’m going off memory here and haven’t made in forever, so may need to tweak a bit with ratios, maybe!!! 😉
I hope you try and enjoy! 😁😁💜💜😊😊
All of my love 💜 and the love,💜 blessings, 😇 and grace 🙏 of our LORD & SAVIOUR, unto you and yours👪, today and always!!!!
Suzanne,
Yes, the sauce described by me is very appealing to me. There are various ways via which we can get a sweet and sour taste, pineapple juice, passion fruit, lemon juice and orange juice, all of them are great ingredients. I will try later with your recipe and hope to make a more fruity sweet ands our sauce.
Hi Elaine!
I tested your basic S&S sauce with deep fried chicken today. It tasted far more better than the most of the other recipes I had tried earlier. I just added some black vinegar in order to achieve richer taste because personally, I can’t stand for “western fusion Uncle Ben’s like” S&S sauce taste.
However, I still wonder how the local Chinese restaurant in my home town make their S&S sauce with tofu and chicken. Its colour is light yellow, a bit like chicken stock, so it doesn’t contain ketchup and black vinegar at least. The taste is rather strong S&S, stronger than I achieved using your recipe. Would you have any advice how to make something similar? Replace ketchup with pineapple juice or…? Thank you in advance!
You’ve such a lovely site. The food is so much better than the food served here in many Chinese restaurants. ♡
Hi Susan,
Sorry I cannot figure out the exact the recipe of that sweet and sour sauce mentioned in your comment.
We do have several types of sweet and sour sauce in China for example the taste can be achieved with sugar and black vinegar(the color can be quite dark) or sugar with white vinegar (a light yellow color). However it also might be achieved by other fruit juice for example orange juice or pineapple juice. My brother loves to cook sweet and sour sauce simply with store-bought orange juice. So sorry I cannot give a helpful comment. A picture, if possible might be quite help for defining the recipe.
This sauce was delicious and so easy to make with ingredients I already had on hand! It was a great way to spice up our regular stir fry
Thank you, Amanda. There are many different approaches for a sweet and sour taste, I always want to make a sauce with the most common ingredient. Happy cooking with the lovely flavor.
Hi Elaine,
you mention “However if the main ingredients is marinated with ginger and green onion water previously, they can be skipped”. I don’t quite understand this. I have have seen several recipes on your site where meat is precooked using ginger and green onions, mainly to remove blood and other residues. But I can’t remember any marinating which I would presume to happen with a smaller amount of cold or cooled down liquid. Could you maybe explain this?