This is a simple homemade recipe for sweet and sour sauce. Sweet and sour sauce is used primarily for chicken or pork dishes, but can also be used for fish as well.
This recipe seems a little bit simple, and isn’t 100% authentic, but it is a delicious sweet and sour sauce you can make in about ten minutes.
Sweet and Sour Sauce Ingredients
To make about two cups of sweet and sour sauce you will use:
- Three quarters of a cup of sugar
- Two thirds of a cup of water
- A third of a cup of white vinegar
- A quarter cup of soy sauce
- About a tablespoon of ketchup
- And about two tablespoons of corn starch
How to Make Sweet and Sour Sauce
Bring a saucepan to medium-high heat and start combining ingredients.
It’s usually easiest to combine the water, vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup and corn starch first, and slowly stir in the sugar. It’s quite a bit of sugar and you want to make sure it fully dissolves to ensure your sauce ends up delicious.
While you’re stirring, your mixture should gradually come to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, slightly reduce the heat. Continue simmering until it starts to thicken.
The cooking time should only be about five to seven minutes, but going a bit longer is okay to get a thicker sauce.
Tips for Making Sweet and Sour Sauce
- You can substitute out the white vinegar for rice vinegar if you want to get all fancy and authenticy, but most people prefer the familiar taste of white vinegar.
- Don’t worry if the sauce continues at a rolling boil when you reduce the heat during the cooking time. It doesn’t end up “burnt” unless you really, really overdo it. The higher the temperature while you simmer it, the quicker it cooks. Bringing it down a bit further is probably the best plan, though.
This page is AWESOME!
We throw in a few rough cut pieces of onion and green pepper while the sauce is simmering and then strain them out before serving for extra flavor.
We also “stumbled” onto an amazing flavor enhancer that’s not always easy to come by, but made a batch of s&s sauce the best everyone at the table (said) they ever tasted!
I had made the sweet & sour sauce for some grilled chicken we were having but I accidently boiled it down a little too much and thought it was too thick. So you know that meat juice that collects at the bottom of the serving platter? Well, I added that to the sauce and simmered it all for about another minute more, and oooooh…it was so good!
BTW; really love your blog!