How many half-used bottles of condiments would you say you have in your refrigerator at this very moment. Five? Ten? Twenty? I don’t know how many I have but I know it’s too many. So when I have the opportunity to make a sauce or condiment from things I already have on hand insteading of buying yet another bottle, I’m going to do that. I love sweet chili sauce, but I only use it maybe once or twice per year and each time I’m left with half a bottle that haunts the back of my fridge for-ev-er. So this time I decided to make my own smaller batch of easy sweet chili sauce using a few simple ingredients that I usually have on hand (including another condiment that commonly haunts my fridge!).
What is Sweet Chili Sauce?
This incredibly simple sauce, sometimes called Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, is sweet, sour, and spicy. If you’re a fan of the classic sweet and sour sauce, this is quite similar, but with a delightfully spicy kick. This sauce goes great on tofu, chicken, seafood (especially shrimp and salmon), and vegetables. If you’d like to try the traditional Thai version of sweet chili sauce, check out this recipe from Hot Thai Kitchen, or this recipe from Thai Cookbook.
How to Use Sweet Chili Sauce
Sweet chili sauce is great for dipping or drizzling over your favorite foods. Here are a few recipes where I’ve used sweet chili sauce in the past:
- Sweet Chili Tofu Bowls
- Coconut Crusted Tofu with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce
- Sweet Chili Chicken Stir Fry Bowls
- Coconut Crusted Chicken with Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce
It would also make a great dipping sauce for baked chicken wings, chicken nuggets, or dumplings.
Short Cut Sweet Chili Sauce
This isn’t a from-scratch, authentic sweet chili sauce. Sweet chili sauce is usually made with fresh red chiles, but I rarely see those at the store, so I took a short cut. I used sambal oelek, which is basically just red chiles and vinegar. Since vinegar is another main ingredient in sweet chili sauce, this using sambal oelek is a great shortcut.
Where Can I Buy Sambal Oelek?
Thankfully, sambal oelek is really easy to find in major grocery stores these days. Just look in the international foods aisle, near the sriracha. There is another product, chili garlic sauce, which is similar but has garlic in addition to the red chiles and vinegar. You can use that for your sweet chili sauce, but it will add a slightly garlicky flavor.
How else can you use sambal oelek? It’s great in all sorts of stir fry sauces, I like to put it on my eggs, rice bowls, soups, and more. It’s extremely versatile and can be used on just about anything. Here is the archive of recipes that use sambal oelek on this site.
Easy Sweet Chili Sauce
Servings 4 1/4 cup eachIngredients
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar ($0.47)
- 1/4 cup sugar ($0.08)
- 1/4 cup water ($0.00)
- 1 Tbsp sambal oelek ($0.13)
- 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch + 1 Tbsp water ($0.02)
Instructions
- Add the rice vinegar, sugar, water, and sambal oelek to a small sauce pot. Heat and stir the mixture over medium heat until the sugar fully dissolves.
- Stir the cornstarch into 1 Tbsp water until dissolved, then pour it into the sauce pot with the sweet chili sauce. Continue stirring and heating until the mixture comes up to a simmer, at which time the cornstarch will thicken the sauce and go from appearing cloudy to clear.
- Use the sauce immediately, or refrigerate and use within one week.
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Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!How to Make Homemade Sweet Chili Sauce – Step by Step Photos
Combine 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and 1 Tbsp sambal oelek in a small sauce pot.
This is what sambal oelek looks like. This is the same brand that makes the most popular brand of sriracha, so you can usually find it in stores that sell sriracha. It’s just a mixture of red chiles and vinegar. Super simple, but really good, and extremely versatile! I put it on everything. :)
This is the rice vinegar I use. It’s important to use rice vinegar because it is more mild than other types of vinegar and will make the sauce tangy without being overly sour. I do not suggest using a different type of vinegar.
Heat and stir the mixture in the sauce pot over medium heat until the sugar fully dissolves and the mixture looks clear. This should happen very quickly, within a few minutes.
Dissolve 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch in 1 Tbsp water, then pour that into the sauce pot. Continue to stir and cook over medium heat until it comes back up to a simmer. The cornstarch mixture will make the sauce look cloudy and white, but that will change…
When the sauce reaches a simmer, the cornstarch will thicken the sauce. At this point you’ll also notice the cornstarch going from white and cloudy to clear. And now your Easy Sweet Chili Sauce is finished!
You can either use the sauce immediately, or refrigerate it and use it within a week.
Thanks, this saved me tonight when I realized half way through a recipe we had no more chili sauce! Thankfully, I still had sambal.
Hi there! Could the cornstarch be left out in this recipe? Or what could I use instead for a grain free recipe? Thank you!
arrowroot starch should be able to be substituted
This quick little recipe saved the day when we realized we were out of Thai Sweet Hot Chili sauce. I usually can a bunch, but low and behold , we didn’t have anymore on our shelves. Budget Bytes saved the day.
I made a modification, I used grape jelly to replace much of the sugar and water content to great effect. I also added a large cloves of garlic minced and a very small amount of ginger. It turned out amazing!
I like my sweet chili sauce a bit more tart so I added an extra dash of rice vinegar and a splash of shoyu for an umami undertone.
I haven’t made this for years and came back today to make sure I had the ingredients in so I could sweet chili chicken bowls. I don’t remember making it sambal oelek – was there a different version of this with something else in place of that? I’m not opposed to trying it :) – I’m just driving myself crazy thinking the recipe changed. Sriracha maybe? with red pepper flakes?
Nope! I’ve never updated this one. :) That being said, you can definitely experiment with using different chile sauces to see if you like them!
So good!
This was fab! Thank you!
I only had seasoned rice vinegar on hand (seasoned rice vinegar has sugar and salt pre-added), which I used in this recipe without making any other changes. Tastes good: spicy, tangy, and sweet. So in case anyone else was wondering if seasoned rice vinegar will work here: yes, it’s fine. It will come out sweeter and saltier than the recipe as written, but it doesn’t ruin it.
Hello
As much as I like spicy, this was even too much for me. I would recommend to start with 1/2 of the sambala olek as recommended in the recipe, add more if you want it spicier.
Also, big tip, add a splash (say, 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon) of MAGGI Seasoning. I source
it locally, and it’s usually available in supermarkets, It’s kinda like a super-charged
soy sauce. Be careful ! A little goes a long way. It just adds that umami flavor.
It takes the edge off the spiciness and acidity. Bon appetit !
I made this the other night and it was so easy and so good. I ususually double up the cornstarch in recipes and did that here and liked the consistency of my sauce. I made sweet chili chicken bowls and was really pleased with it. Will make again! I love making a sauce from scratch. I feel like a real cook.
I hope I can find sambal olek at my grocery store. I’d really like to make chicken sweet chili bowls.
I cooked this in my microwave instead of on the stove and it came out perfectly. 2 minutes (with stirring) then add cornstarch slurry and cook 1 more minute at full power.
I get that this says it needs rice vinegar but that would nullify the “budget” part for me. So would apple cider vinegar work? ( I don’t need it to taste 100% the same). i know it works in most cases as a 1:1 ratio but for this recipe should I change The ratio?
Yes, you can do AC vinegar, but it does tend to be stronger than rice vinegar (in both flavor and acidity), so I would try reducing the amount. Unfortunately, I’d need to test it before offering a suggestion on just how much to reduce it. There isn’t really an exact ratio for this sort of thing because it can depend on the other ingredients in the recipe. You could always start with ½ and just add more to taste, though! :)
Thanks so much! I was able to actually find rice vinegar on sale so I will actually be able to use that this time. But when I make it again I’ll experiment with the AC vinegar since I usually have that on hand. Glad to know it would still be workable with some tweaks though.
I’m so glad you were able to find some rice vinegar on sale! Rice vinegar really is special and now you’ll have it on hand for other recipes, too. :)
What’s great about this recipe is that it really does make a small batch and tastes great with only a few ingredients (as opposed to other recipes I found online with 12+ ingredients). I swapped out sambal oelek for chili garlic sauce since that’s what I had on hand. Excellent.
This recipe worked BEAUTIFULLY. Commercial chili sauces generally have non-vegan ingredients, so homemade is the way to go. This one has excellent balance between sweet, sour, salt, and spice.
I have not yet tried this but would like to – is there any way to sub the sugar for honey or maple syrup? They’re the only sweetners I have on hand.
I haven’t tried either of those types of sweeteners in this recipe, unfortunately, so I’m not sure how much it will affect the outcome. I will say that both of those sugars have a much stronger flavor than white sugar, which is rather neutral, so it will change the final flavor of the sauce.
I tried making this tonight and it tasted good but it smelled really strongly of vinegar. I used the amount of rice vinegar shown but all through the cooking process and even after it cooled, the vinegar smell was still powerful. Any idea what I could have done wrong?
You’ll definitely smell the vinegar strongly while it’s cooking because the heat is creating vinegar vapors. The smell should mellow as the sauce is cooled, but I don’t know why it may have still had a strong smell afterward for you. I don’t necessarily think that is an indication that anything was done wrong, though. :)
Maybe you don’t like vinegar as much. This is a sweet and SOUR sauce. The vinegar is a feature of this sauce. I actually added more vinegar to the end product, according to my taste. For you, maybe use less according to yours. To each their own.
Yes, yes, yes. Everyone loved it. Simple, inexpensive, delicious.
Great recipie!!! Idk what the people that gave it negative reviews did wrong but they definitely did something incorrect. It’s excelent the way it is.
I’m wondering if the negative reviews here didn’t see the note about not substituting rice vinegar. With the ingredients listed, this recipe is perfect. Definitely spicy, but that’s the way I like it. Perfect for dipping eggrolls!
Well guys, I’m a qualified chef and I didnt have Sambal olek so I made my own using Chilli flakes tomato paste fredhly ground ginger , lemon grass and garlic, The measurements worked fine for me, however you can mix more cornflour in water and add more if its not quite thick enough, it will thicken more in the fridge so dont over thicken it when simmering.
For an extra twist you can add kaffe lime leaves whilst simmering or try with star aninice
We made this to go with our fried cream cheese wontons and loved it. So quick and easy. Looking forward to using it for a dipping sauce for other things. Thanks!
Waaaaay to much vinegar christ. takes waaay longer than 10 minutes to thicken. bad recipe
smells like pure vinegar boo
boo
Hi Devin, sorry you didn’t like the recipe! Are there any questions I can help you to troubleshoot?
Did not thicken with the advised amount of cornstarch. looking at a watery mess even after adding more. smells like pure vinegar, obviously need to use less than stated. 10/10 will look for another recipe.
BOO
I’m sorry to hear it Alanna! Let me know if you have any questions I can help you troubleshoot further.
Delicious! Great recipe, but it is very spicy!! Next time I would cut the chili sauce in half.
Thanks for sharing Annie!
Should I leave out the cornstarch until the end using the crockpot?
I’m making a sauce from scratch off your site and doing the crock pot recipie
Thanks in advance ;)
Ooops now seeing this comment here. Yes you can add it closer to the end of cooking.
Are you cooking just the sauce in the crockpot or are you adding it to another recipe?
I’m excited to try this. I appreciate the previous post telling how they cooled the spice factor down. I am not into spicy food either. =)
I used a no calorie sugar substitute as that is all I had on hand. Worked great. Had to add a bit more “sugar” and vinegar (maybe a teaspoon or so of sugar, and a tablespoon of vinegar), but I’m also not a big spicy petson.
Way to much vinegar, sour.
I was thinking it was like Mae Ploy sauce. What I like about Mae Ploy is it’s simple flavors, chili, sweet, hot.
I ended up putting in lease than half the vinegar and extra sugar. The Sambal Olekek is a complex chili flavor which I like, but you can’t increase the chili flavor without increasing the vinegar flavor.
I will probably boil a tablespoon of hot dried chili peppers seeds, (pizza topping) in the base next time and adjust it with Samba Olekek.
Otherwise, the texture and taste was great.
What can you use in place of the sambol chili?
Unfortunately I don’t think there is an easy sub for that ingredient. You would have to use some fresh chiles, but I would need to rework the recipe entirely to make it work with a different ingredient.
This is good but it definitely has a lot more vinegar than other ones I’ve tasted. Not sure if I like that.
This was easy and delicious. I drizzle it on everything! It also is great mixed with mayo to make a boom boom sauce.
I added a 1/2T of fish sauce one time (I saw that on another recipe; and I had it around). I didn’t have sambal oelek around another time, so I finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic and added 1T of red chili flakes.
So delicious and easy. We loved it with with this package of frozen boom boom shrimp we got from Whole Foods… trying to figure out what to dip in it next!
I was skeptical of this sauce. It looked too simple. It looked too spicy. However, I made it and it was DELICIOUS. I made it to drizzle on top of some tofu stir-fry, but now I really want to dip some spring rolls into it. This sauce hits the sweet spot where it’s spicy enough that my spouse enjoys it, but mild enough that I can still enjoy it, too. Thanks for another great recipe, Beth.
I have just tried this, the sambal oelek I got did not say chilli and viniger paste but cholli pickled paste. By accident and not reading the recipe correctly I added 1/4 cup of paste. Also it is a little sweet for me and I will use less sugar. Having tasted it while still warm I decided to add 1/4 teaspoon of smoked chilli flakes.
Awesome. I just cleaned out a bunch of half-used condiments. I always have sambal olek on hand so this is great.
I made this with honey, as I only realized that I didn’t have any sugar left when I decided to make it. It turned out really great, I just took a little less honey than the 1/4 cup of sugar in the recipes, as I often find that honey is sweeter.
I’ll definitely will make this again, I always have Sambal oelek in the house but never Sweet Chili when I need it!
I love the idea of substituting honey for sugar. Did you still use the same amount of water?
I’ll bet you could use your favorite non-calorie sweetner (like Splenda or stevia) in place of the sugar. I’ll have to try that, because I’m always looking to reduce the sugar in my foods.
Heather I was wondering about that myself!
This is great! We keep all these ingredients stocked so I don’t think I’ll buy the premade stuff again.
Wow! How easy is that, and a small fraction of the cost of the bottled stuff. It’s my grandson’s favorite condiment, so you can believe I’ll be pinch hitting with this recipe.
I’m so grateful you had photos. I was very skeptical on whether I’d seen or heard of Sambal Oelek and then when I saw the picture I went “Ohhhhhhhh… thaaaaaat stuff!” I see it everywhere and easily grabbed some when I went grocery shopping today! This recipe was simple and easy, but flavorful. The chili paste I can def find more uses for, but now I won’t have to stare at a bottle of sweet chili sauce in my fridge for 6 months.
This looks divine, sounds divine, and I WISH I could try it.I am so impressed with your creativity and talent.
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I am a huge fan of spicy food definitely gonna try this on weekend