Making a quick Thai Chili Sauce is easier than you probably think. You just need hot peppers and a few other pantry basics to whip up this Sweet Thai Chili sauce (with some kick).
I'm not some nutjob you know. I do, on occasion, buy preprepared foods. Frozen stuff. And stuff in bottles. That kind of thing. We don't eat a lot of it, mainly because I don't like how it tastes.
But there are certain things that just aren't worth the pain of making. Things like toast.
Just kidding. Springrolls, however are a perfect example of something that isn't worth making yourself unless you have 700 hours on your hands and get extreme joy out of swearing until your nose drips.
So I always buy my store's brand of vegetarian spring rolls. They're great. Completely loaded with grease. Even when I bake them in the oven, the grease is just spilling out of them. Gotta love that. I also always (used to) buy the Thai dipping sauce in a bottle that compliments these delicious frozen spring rolls.
Making your own Sweet Thai Chili Dipping sauce was for crazy people. I knew I'd never be able to make it taste as good as the stuff in the bottle, so why bother? It's the same reason I always buy bottled peanut sauce. I've never been able to duplicate it. My peanut sauce always ends up tasting like a peanut butter cup without the chocolate.
And then a few weeks ago I had a moment of extreme crazy. Or perhaps it was lucidity. It's hard for me to tell nowadays. I WAS GOING TO MAKE THAI CHILI SAUCE. Now, being the way that I am, I didn't just randomly pick a recipe from the Internet. I randomly picked 7 recipes from the Internet, plus Gordon Ramsay's recipe from his Fast Food cookbook. (the night after my thai chili sauce experiment I dreamt Gordon and I were best friends and we went to see a grade 5 school play together)
I prepared 3 of the recipes and compared 2 of the techniques. What I came up with is a chili sauce that's really easy to make and has about equal parts sweet and heat. So if you don't like heat ... cut down on the chili peppers in the recipe, or omit the seeds. I included the seeds for a ridiculously stupid reason. I like how they look floating in the sauce.
Speaking of chili peppers, you can use either red Jalapeno peppers or red Serrano peppers. Red Jalapenos would be my number one choice, but I find red Jalapenos reallyyyy difficult to find sometimes, so if you can't find them just go with the Serranos. The big fat one in the picture is a Jalapeno pepper by the way, and the long skinny ones are Serranos.
2 cloves garlic
2 red Jalapeno or 2 red Serrano peppers
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
¾ cup water
1 cup sugar
¼ cup white vinegar
1 tsp. salt
cornstarch slurry (1 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbsps. water)
1. Throw everything but the cornstarch slurry into a blender. No need to chop the garlic or peppers. However, if you want less heat deseed your peppers and cut the veins out.
2. Blend until garlic is chopped up and peppers are in small pieces.
3. Dump it all into a sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes or so until the peppers and garlic are soft.
4. Add your cornstarch slurry. Cook another few minutes at a simmer.
5. Jar it up and don't even taste it for a few days. If you taste it right now it will burn your tongue off and send you home crying.
Sweet & Spicy Thai Chili Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 Red Jalapeno peppers Can use Serrano as well
- ¾ cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Mix cornstarch and water to form a slurry.
- Throw everything *except* the cornstarch slurry into a blender. No need to chop the garlic or peppers.
- Blend until garlic is chopped up and peppers are in small pieces.
- Dump it all into a sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes or so until the peppers and garlic are soft.
- Add your cornstarch slurry. Cook another few minutes at a simmer.
- Jar it up and don't even taste it for a few days. If you taste it right now it will burn your tongue off and send you home crying.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe Notes
This type of sauce mellows as it ages.
It'll last for over a month in your fridge. .
This sauce is HOT. Don't want it this hot? Replace one hot pepper with an equal amount of a red bell pepper.
Contrary to popular belief the seeds of a hot pepper do not contain the pepper's heat. They're no hotter than the rest of the pepper. The veins however can be the source of the heat in moderately hot peppers like cayenne or jalapenos. Unlike basic hot peppers, extremely hot peppers like the ghost pepper or scotch bonnet hold the heat of the pepper right in their skin and flesh.
Patti_is_knittinginflashes
Can this be frozen in smaller jars?
Karen
Hi Patti! I've never tried to freeze it so I'm not sure, but I can say that I try to freeze almost everything and almost everything freezes fine, so give it a shot! ~ karen
A
Yessss!
Couldn’t find red jalapeños or Serrano peppers- used red Fresno instead. Fantastic.
Karen
Excellent! I used to have a hard time finding Serranos as well so I ended up growing them myself, lol. ~ karen!
Sondra
I must comment even though it is 7 AM, 9/2019 and looks like no one has had anything to say in years about this recipe.
Okay, first I'm addicted to this type of sauce and love it smeared over lots of things including tofu, but a few years ago a light bulb lite up in my brain and I decided to make my own......so simple. Grab a jar of cheap orange marmalade jam and dump into a bowl, mix in enough rice vinegar to make it pourable, whisk around, add cayenne pepper to taste plus a 1/4 tsp to however much you like of a good quality chili garlic sauce (I use Huy Fong) and viola` you have sweet chili sauce....works for me.....oh, I also add red food coloring so I think I'm eating the bottled stuff, LOL! Now, no one will probably ever read this idea but I got that off my chest....simple, cheap and quick to make....tastes good too and I love passing on my good ideas. This is also good on toast!
Jean
I read it!
Karen but not that karen
I just read it also
Lauren
Round two for photo
Karen
Hey Lauren! I'm glad you liked it AND took the time to circle back and upload the photo! ~ karen
Lauren
This turned out perfectly. I'm the same way- rarely do I eat processed food so when I find things like this to add to my repertoire I get all excited. Especially when they turn out this perfectly. Here's the proof! I made the wontons from scratch except for the wrappers. Making those is just nuts (..uh oh...)
Helen Schmidt
My husband just made this recipe and it tastes great, and looks really good too! Thanks for doing the research.
Linda
Use tapioca flour instead of cornstarch - it holds up better when cold.
Claire
Quick question. I'm finding it difficult to find cornstarch here in the uk. Can anything else be used in replace of it?
Thanks
Kirsty
I made this today! It's smells absolutely devine, did try it straight from the pan (after reading the warning not to) was super hot hoping a couple days in the fridge will help! I think unless it mellows my next batch I'll only use one pepper! Thanks for a great recipe :)
chieko
You have to use Thai chilis for this. Serranos are close. Jalapenos don't even get count. Way too much sugar in this recipe. If you want Thai heat, leave the seeds and the veins.
Karen
I'll leave it as is. There's sugar because it's a sweet Thai sauce. ~ karen
Mindy
Hey, guess what? Pinned this when you first posted it - just stumbled upon it again in my frantic Pinterest board search for a homemade treat to go with my Xmas gift exchange gift (I embroidered store-bought napkins!) for THIS SATURDAY - and now I'm goin' for it. We like it hot in our group, so I'm goin' all in. I'll stick a note in about it mellowing out after a few days. Thanks in advance for saving my ass. :o)
Jessica
I made this...and added some pureed peach. So far its fabulous! I'm thinking about attempting to can this fall and wondered if this was something that could be canned, since i have a simply ridiculous amount of hot peppers.
Kimberly
Jessica, did you get an answer about canning this? I'm thinking I may give this out at Christmas and would like to know if it's shelf stable.
Jessica
No, I didn't get an answer = ( but, to be honest it has held up really well. I just gave the last of what I made to a friend and even though I added peach to one and plum to another, it didn't seem to degrade any quicker. I don't think its self stable in this preparation, unfortunately.
Lonelle
How cool!! I don't know how I missed this post! I actually make my own spring rolls! We had a New Years Eve party where a neighbor (who happens to be a mail order bride from the Philippines, really!!) came over and taught us how and if you do a couple hundred at a time and freeze them then its so worth it. The trick is to roll them while watching TV! lol
But I have always used the bottled sauce from the Asian market!! Well...no more of that bottled stuff!! Yummy!!
Lee
I actually make eggrolls/spring rolls as often as I make anything else. It is simple: buy a bag of pre-shredded cabbage/carrot/veg mix, dump it into a large skillet w/ some small chicken breast cubes that are cooking in peanut oil, follow the directions on the eggroll package and voila! Eggrolls for dinner. Kids love them...not mystery meat either!
Payje
Ummm...this looks DELICIOUS. I always try to concoct some sort of spring roll dipping sauce (because the frozen boxes ALWAYS come with some little packet that runs out after you make 2 spring rolls) and it just never works out for me... but this looks like a thai miracle! Thank you!
Karen
You're welcome Payje! ~ karen
Janey
I can't even tell you how timely this post is! Thanks lady
Bee Puttaya
Try it with fried and grilled chicken (Thai always do) or deep fried things :D อร่อยมากค่ะ
Katie
I'm so excited to see this recipe! I was just saying that I need to figure out how to make this stuff at home.
Trysha
Chung's veggie spring rolls are a gift from the Frozen food aisle. Only thing I go down the aisles in the store for. Yum!