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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.
“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.”
LINDSAY
Easy Sweet Chili Sauce
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 instead of buying yet another bottle, I’m going to do that. I love sweet chili sauce, but I only use it 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!).
Recipe Success Tips
- Shortcut sweet chili sauce. This recipe isn’t a from-scratch, authentic sauce. Sweet chili sauce is usually made with fresh red chiles, but I rarely see them at the store. I used sambal oelek, which is basically just red chiles and vinegar.
- Check the international foods aisle. You can typically find sambal oelek near the sriracha.
- Don’t substitute the rice vinegar. Rice vinegar is mild, so it makes the sauce slightly tangy without making it too sour. Do not use a different type of vinegar.
- Don’t worry if the sauce looks cloudy. This is part of the process when cornstarch gets added. It will clear up.
Easy Sweet Chili Sauce
Cost $0.88 recipe / $0.22 serving
Ingredients
- ¼ cup rice vinegar ($0.49)
- ¼ cup sugar ($0.24)
- ¼ cup water ($0.00)
- 1 Tbsp sambal oelek ($0.13)
- ½ 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 the ingredients: Combine ¼ cup rice vinegar, ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup water, and 1 Tbsp sambal oelek in a small pot or saucepan.
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. :)
Heat the mixture: 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.
Add the cornstarch: Dissolve ½ 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.
Simmer: 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!
Use or store: You can either use the sauce immediately with your favorite dish or store it for later.
Serving Suggestions
Sweet chili sauce is one of those condiments that instantly brightens a dish, and I find it works beautifully in so many recipes. It adds a sweet-heat kick to tofu spinach and green pea curry. It’s just as delicious with air fryer fried shrimp—the crispy, golden coating paired with a sticky-sweet, lightly spicy dip is an instant crowd-pleaser. And when I want to add a little extra depth to Thai curry vegetable soup, a drizzle of sweet chili sauce brings a punch of brightness that complements the coconut milk and aromatic spices perfectly. It’s a simple finishing touch that makes each of these dishes even more irresistible.
STORAGE
Store unused sweet chili sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 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.