Thai Sweet Chili Sauce Recipe

This sauce is sweet, sticky, and good on absolutely (okay, almost) everything.

By
Joshua Bousel
a photo of Joshua Bousel, a Contributing Writer at Serious Eats
Joshua Bousel
Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Updated Dec. 22, 2022
An egg roll is dipped into Thai sweet chili sauce.

Why This Recipe Works

  • Cornstarch thickens the sauce and gives it body.
  • This sauce is perfectly balanced between heat, salt, sweet, and acid, but it can be customized.

Sriracha is pretty prolific as a condiment, crossing cultural boundaries to find uses for almost anything your heart desires. Thinking about Asian sauces, I can only imagine one possibly outdoing the worldly Sriracha—Thai sweet chili sauce.

This thickened mixture of chiles, vinegar, sugar, and garlic rightfully puts its flavor in the Asian corner, but it's so accessible I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't profess love for its balance between sweet and spicy that makes it perfect for everything from eggrolls and fries, to burgers, and so much more.

It's so quick and simple to make at home, I've been forgoing the bottle for a while now. The advantage of this is experimenting to create your own unique blend of this versatile sauce. The recipe here is fairly standard, but I've been known to substitute the salt for fish sauce for some added body, or add a dash of Tabasco for an extra layer of heat and flavor. The sky's the limit on what you can do and how you can use it, and you're pretty much guaranteed that it'll always be awesome.

June 2012

Recipe Details

Thai Sweet Chili Sauce Recipe

Active 10 mins
Total 10 mins
Serves 12 servings
Makes 1 1/2 cups

This sauce is sweet, sticky, and good on absolutely (okay, almost) everything.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water, divided

  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch

  • 3 medium cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)

  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh Fresno, red Thai chiles, or red jalapeño peppers (seeds left in for a hotter sauce)

  • 2/3 cup sugar

  • 1/3 cup rice vinegar

  • 2 teaspoons salt

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons water and cornstarch. Set aside.

    Whisking water and cornstarch in a measuring cup.

  2. In a medium saucepan, mix together remaining 1 cup water, garlic, peppers, sugar, vinegar, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat and simmer 3 to 5 minutes.

    Mixture of garlic, water, sugar, salt, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  3. Stir cornstarch mixture to re-combine, then whisk into simmering sauce and cook until thickened, about 1 minute more. Remove from heat, let cool, and use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

    Cornstarch slurry is added to the simmering chili sauce for body.
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
54 Calories
0g Fat
14g Carbs
0g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12
Amount per serving
Calories 54
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 354mg 15%
Total Carbohydrate 14g 5%
Dietary Fiber 0g 1%
Total Sugars 11g
Protein 0g
Vitamin C 1mg 3%
Calcium 9mg 1%
Iron 0mg 1%
Potassium 22mg 0%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)