A great homemade sweet and sour sauce is an essential for every recipe collection!
Sweet and sour sauce is a delicious mix of tangy vinegar, sweet sugar, and umami flavors. Once you try this easy version, you’ll never go back to store-bought!
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Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce Recipe
- Six ingredients and one step are all it takes to make this sauce.
- Uses just simple pantry ingredients.
- Less than 10 minutes to make!
- A good homemade sauce makes for the perfect dipping sauce.
- Make this multi-purpose sweet and sour sauce and use it for everything from pork stir-fry to shish-kabobs or as a glaze over grilled pineapple!
Ingredients and Variations
All of these ingredients can be switched up to create a signature recipe based on how you plan to use it!
Ketchup – Tomato is at the base of the sweet and sour sauce and ketchup is a great thickener. Tomato paste can also be used if ketchup isn’t available.
Apple Cider Vinegar – Use more or less based on how tangy you want the sweet and sour sauce to be.
Sugar – Brown sugar can be replaced with honey, maple syrup, or a brown sugar substitute like Swerve for a low-carb option.
Soy Sauce – Liquid aminos or coconut aminos can be used interchangeably with soy sauce and have the same flavor, less sodium, and more nutritive value.
Variations – Add a little sriracha, some fresh ginger or minced garlic, or even some red pepper flakes for a little heat! This recipe does not use drops of red food coloring, but you can add a couple of drops for visual aesthetics if you like. Swap corn starch for arrowroot flour.
How to Make Sweet and Sour Sauce
- Whisk together all ingredients in a small pot and bring to a boil.
- Continue to simmer and whisk until it reaches desired consistency.
Homemade Sweet and Sour Sauce Storage
Keep homemade sweet and sour sauce in a jar with a tight-fitting lid in the refrigerator and use it within a week.
Ways to Use Sweet and Sour Sauce
There’s not enough room to list all the amazing ways you can use homemade sweet and sour sauce, it’s that good!
It’s amazing as a dip for egg rolls, spring rolls, crispy shrimp, dumplings, fried wontons, or a sweet and savory sauce for cocktail meatballs.
Swirl a little into a low-carb egg roll in a bowl, use it as a glaze for sauteed Brussels sprouts, roasted asparagus, or use it as a glaze or marinade for salmon, ribs, or grilled sweet and sour chicken thighs.
Kids love dipping their chicken nuggets and tater tots into it!
More Flavorful Sauces
Ingredients
- ½ cup apple cider vinegar *see note
- ½ cup light brown sugar packed
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
- Whisk to combine.
- As it starts heating up, keep whisking constantly until it thickens into a sauce consistency. It will thicken as it cools.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dip, Dressing, Sauce, Side Dish
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So simple and so good!
I was going to make sweet n sour chicken, realized I had used the last of the canned sauce.
Found this recipe, realized I was out of cider vinegar.
Made up the recipe, substituting distilled vinegar with a liberal splash of lemon juice.
Tasted great, though a bit brighter due to lemon juice.
Added a can of chunk pineapple with juice plus a tbs of corn starch.
Brought it back to a boil to thicken.
Tasted great – plopped in my chicken breast chunks and simmered to meld.
Added a couple dashes of Chinese 5 spice to deepen the flavors.
Best sweet n sour chicken I’ve made yet, notwithstanding the fact that I was out of peppers as well.
Didn’t really miss them.
Start to finish, about 20 minutes.
Thanks for sharing all of your great tips Robert!
Too much cider vinegar. Even after adding the extra brown sugar & extra ketchup the vinegar is very pungent.
Thanx for a great recipe
Good basic recipe for egg rolls. It needed some flavor I thought so I added a tsp of freshly grated ginger. I’ve made it several times
This sauce is very good. Just decreased the vinegar
Tastes great but how do you avoid the clumps of flour? I didn’t have cornstarch :(
I haven’t made this particular recipe with flour. I would suggest mixing it with a cold liquid (water/vinegar) until it has no lumps before heating. Let us know how it goes.
I understand this is supposed to be a recipe that is made cheaply but it tasted like drinking a bottle of vinegar
Sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy the sauce Tricia.
Delicious with our homemade egg rolls!
Very tangy but i added salt and CHILI SAUCE. That gave it the restaurant flavor my kids like.
TY for posting!!
This is such a delicious sweet & sour sauce… So simple and easy to make; wonderful consistency. I use Coconut Palm sugar in place of brown sugar to cut some carbs. My husband loves it too!!!
Great idea Hanna! Thank you for sharing.
I’m obsessed with this sauce! I made it for the first time yesterday for some roasted brussel sprouts and I can’t stop thinking about them. I found that I needed to add quite a bit more corn starch than it called for, and I may play around with some of the ratios a bit but this is beyond delicious!!!
People saying this is too sour must like “candy” food. It is marvelous. And I really like making sweet/sour dishes at home because I can add way more vegetables and pineapple and have no breading on whatever meat I choose. THANKS
I just made this as a dipping sauce for leftover pan fried chicken. It met expectations. Although it was a bit too tangy for me at first, after adding a little extra sugar and about a tablespoon of apricot preserves, I was quite happy with the results. I think it is a great base recipe; easy to tweak to your specific taste. Thinking that I might swap the cider vinegar for rice vinegar next time and see if that cuts down on the acidity. Glad I found this one.
As prepared, this tastes nothing like sweet and sour sauce that you would get at a “New york style” Chinese restaurant. The color is way off as is the flavor. Not even a close approximation of flavor, even with heavy doctoring afterward.
Sorry to hear that John! This recipe is a favorite for many readers. Hopefully, you will find one that better fits what you had in mind :)
Dunno what sort of restaurants you’ve been to, but this is delicious. Maybe you should question where you’ve previously gone.
I agree that the vinegar was a bit too much , I would suggest people start off with half the amount and then adjusting to taste if they need more or less. Going to try to add more sugar to see if that helps
Simple, flavorful. Better than that pink stuff you get at the restaurant. Have some left over fried fish that I’m going to repurpose and make sweet and sour fish.
I like the pink stuff why you said
AMAZING! So much better than store bought!
Brilliant Recipes thank you
I was out of pineapple to make my usual s/s sauce, so I went searching for an alternative.
This was great! I read the comments and used 1/4 C of white vinegar to adjust and it was really good. I know you can’t replicate a true s/s with these ingredients but it certainly worked very nicely for my chicken dish…especially since I had ALL the ingredients on hand and my expectations were tempered by that. Even so, it was great!!
My family LOVES this sauce! Yes, it’s different than the little packets you get with your takeout, but don’t let that put you off. We prefer this version to any we’ve had in a Chinese restaurant–and that includes restaurants in China.
Great recipe, so much better than anything you’ll find in a jar on a supermarket shelf. Quick and simple to prepare.