Why make your own sweet chili sauce at home?

• It’s versatile. Use it on burgers, sandwiches, as a pizza sauce, in Thai dishes, in stir fries, as a dipping sauce for egg rolls, cream cheese wontons, chicken nuggets, sweet potato fries, French fries, potstickers, and much, much more.
• You control the spice: If traditional sweet chili sauce is too mild for you (or vice versa), you can add more spice when you make it at home.
• It’s SO delicious. With just the right mix of sweet and spicy, it’s one of the tastiest sauces you will ever make, IMHO.

I discovered sweet chili sauce when I was living in Japan. I ate at McDonalds way more there than I ever have in the U.S. Mainly because of their fish nuggets, which they served with – you guessed it – sweet chili sauce. I had no idea what kind of sauce I was eating (it wasn’t common back then!) but it was so, so good.

I’ve been eating the stuff ever since. Now that I know how to make it homemade, there is no stopping me from eating this sauce all the time.

How To Make Sweet Chili Sauce

This sauce is very easy to make.

You start out by blitzing the fresh ingredients in a food processor (see photo below). Then cook the vinegar and sugars together until the sugar melts. Then add the fresh ingredients and cook for up to 1 hour until the mixture becomes jam-like.

See below for detailed instructions.

Once you make a batch of this sweet chili sauce, trust me – you will use it on everything. You may even be inspired to start making other sauces and condiments at home, like BBQ sauce,  hot sauce, mayonnaise, mustard, dipping sauces, and sauces with a base of sriracha sauce.

Take it from me, you can save money – and have a lot of fun – making homemade sauces. Please let me know what other homemade sauces recipes you would like to see on my blog. I’d love a good challenge! Please share your ideas below.

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Sweet Chili Sauce Recipe

Yield: 4 cups

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Want a spicer sauce? Add more hot chili peppers (red Fresno or other). I used 2 medium-sized peppers for a relatively mild sauce.

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Ingredients

• 2-3 Red Fresno peppers (or red chilies)
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1 1/2-inch piece of fresh ginger
• 2 1/4 pounds red, yellow, and/or orange peppers (your choice of mix)
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup red wine vinegar
• 14.5 ounce can chopped tomatoes
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce (optional)

Instructions

1. Place Fresno peppers, garlic, ginger, and peppers in food processor. Pulse until finely chopped.
2. Place sugars and vinegar in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Add the pepper mixture and tomatoes. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens and becomes jammy. Stir in soy sauce right at the end. Watch closely to make sure the sauce doesn't burn.
3. Proceed to can the sweet chili sauce, or refrigerate, covered, for 2 to 3 weeks.

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