Easy Thai Style Sweet Chili Sauce

This homemade sweet chili sauce recipe is gluten free, and has the right amount of sweet and spicy flavor. A perfect Thai chili sauce for those spring rolls, potstickers, or egg rolls. With a few ingredients, you'll have your own nam chim kai, a dipping sauce for chicken, instead of that store bought stuff with all the preservatives!

Jump to:

• 🍽 Equipment
• 🥣 Food preparation list
• 🥘 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 💭 Helpful Hints
• ❤️ You'll also love these sauce recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

It's an easy Thai sauce that takes minutes to make. It's a little different than Sambal Oelek which is a mixture of chili peppers and more of a paste. Think of Thai sweet chili sauce as more of a sweet and spicy syrup. There are a lot of substitutions you could use with this recipe too.

I made a recipe for chili sauce by adding ketchup and even made it by caramelizing the sugar to give it a deep brown color. I am using Serrano peppers but you could swap them out for red pepper flakes aka red chili flakes, Thai chili, red jalapenos, or just about any chili you can think of.

Depending on what pepper you use, make sure you adjust the quantity otherwise you could end up with a very spicy Thai chili sauce recipe. Especially if you use those Thai chilis!

🍽 Equipment

I seem to have been having a theme of one-pot cooking lately so really the only equipment I used was the food processor, a medium saucepan, and a glass canning jar.

🥣 Food preparation list

If you don't feel like mincing garlic or fresh ginger or dicing up your peppers, you can always give them a rough chop and place them into the food processor or blender. We are looking for a small diced consistency so be careful not to over blend, which can happen if you use something like a Ninja or Magic Bullet.

I like the heat from the Serrano peppers over jalapenos so that is what I used, seeds and all. When I work with ginger, I peel it by using the back of a spoon. It takes the peel off without removing too much of the actual ginger root.

I usually have those small sweet peppers around so I often just use those. You can, of course, use the larger colored bell peppers. For the record, I do not use green bell peppers. I like them raw but I do not like them cooked so I don't even bother with them and wouldn't you know, they are the cheapest of the peppers too!

🥘 Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup rice vinegar
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 sweet peppers, small dice
• 2 serrano peppers, small dice
• 1 inch piece fresh ginger root, small dice
• 1 tablespoon Soy Sauce
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch

🔪 Instructions

1. Mix sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. About 6 minutes.
2. Lower heat, stir in soy sauce, vinegar, peppers, garlic, and ginger. Simmer for about 5 minutes.
3. Whisk in corn starch, making sure it is fully incorporated and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and continue to simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat, allow to cool about 15 minutes.
6. Pour into a heatproof container and store it in the refrigerator.

💭 Helpful Hints

• You can use a food processor to chop the ingredients. 
• I do not recommend a magic bullet to chop the ingredients because it will chop them too finely.
• The finished product will be runny but once it cools and chills, it will set and become thicker.

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• An Asian inspired marinade for beef or pork.

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📖 Recipe