Friday, May 17, 2013

Healthy Homemade Thai Sweet Chili Sauce Recipe- Sugar Free Options, Gluten Free, Vegan Option

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I try to stay away from processed foods whenever I can, but there are some items that I've cheated with, either because I was lazy or because I didn't know how I could make it myself, and the ingredients didn't look "so bad".
Thai sweet chili sauce was one of those items. Not too expensive, not such a long list of ingredients and especially not too many scary sounding ingredients... and it wasn't too expensive, so I would use it here and there.
I love sweet chili sauce as a dipping sauce for egg rolls, on chicken, on rice, on mashed potatoes, in chicken salad, as well as for many other things.
And finally I decided to see if I could make my own recipe that would be healthier and/or cheaper than the store bought stuff.
The recipes I found online all used white sugar and white vinegar, but I made mine with honey and apple cider vinegar, which is healthier. But if you're vegan or just trying to keep this as cheap as possible, you can use the alternatives listed in parenthesis.
This isn't the spiciest or sweetest sauce, and I prefer it that way, but feel free to add more hot pepper flakes, or sweetener or vinegar if you prefer it that way.
I've included a few thickeners that I know will work, but if you don't use those thickeners, try playing around with thickeners that you do use, like ground flax seeds, ground chia seeds, pectin, xanthan gum, agar, etc...

Healthy Homemade Thai Sweet Chili Sauce Recipe- Sugar Free Options, Gluten Free, Vegan Option

Ingredients:
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey (or sugar or agave)
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar)
1 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup potato starch (or corn starch, tapioca starch, arrowroot powder, or any other thickener)

Instructions:
1. Mix the honey/sugar, vinegar, and most of the water. Bring to a boil and stir until dissolved.

2. Add the hot pepper flakes, salt, and garlic powder. Mix and simmer for 2-3 more minutes.

3. Mix the starch with the rest of the water, then add to the pot.

4. Heat, stirring until thickened.

5. Adjust flavorings to taste.


Are you a fan of sweet chili sauce? How do you use it? Do you usually buy it or make it? If you make it, how do you make it?
Do you generally make your own condiments or buy them? If you make some condiments, which ones do you make?
Does this look like a recipe you'd try?



Here's some other homemade condiments you might enjoy:








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5 comments:

  1. you make life delicious
    im ismail alaloui alAssad from facebook :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes I love sweet chili sauce. I usually buy it, but I have all these ingredients in my house almost at all times! I am going to have to make this next time!!

    www.foundafeather,com

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  3. This sauce tastes a lot fresher than its bottled counterpart. Also, it’s a bit more spicy…but that’s what I LOVE about it. Bring on the heat! If you’re not so much into the heat, only use half of the red pepper flakes or omit the sriracha.
    Ingredients
    ¾ cup of Sugar
    ¼ cup Rice Vinegar
    ¼ cup of water
    1 tbsp finely minced garlic (about 5-6 garlic cloves)
    1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
    1 teaspoon Sriracha (or less)
    1 tbsp of cornstarch
    1 tbsp of cold water
    ½ teaspoon salt
    Instructions
    Add ¼ cup water, rice vinegar, and sugar to a pot over medium-high heat. When the mixtures starts to boil, add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Bring the boil down to a simmer and let it simmer for another couple of minutes. This will make sure all of the flavors get infused nicely.
    Add the sriracha.
    In a separate small bowl, mix the cornstarch and 1 TB cold water until the cornstarch is dissolved.
    Bring the sauce to a low boil again and add the cornstarch/water mixture and salt.
    The sauce will begin to thicken up immediately. Cook, while constantly stirring, until the mixture reaches desired thickness…about 3-5 minutes.
    Let the sauce cool and then dip away!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, that looks easy. Any idea how long it will last in the fridge?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I used 14 Truvia packets and made a sugar-free version of this sweet chili sauce recipe (technically 13 1/2 Truvia packets is the equivalency for 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp. of sugar but I just threw in the whole 14th packet). Truvia is an all-natural sugar-free sweetener made from a mixture of rebiana (an extract of the stevia leaf) and an all-natural sugar-alcohol commonly found in grapes called erythritol (Sugar alcohols, ending in an "-ol" suffix, unlike sugars which end in an "-ose" suffix, do not break down with insulin and thus cause no insulin response and thus they're considered sugar-free sweeteners. They break down in the GI tract thus overconsumption of sugar could lead to some GI upset such as flatulence and diarrhea so just be careful how much sugar alcohol you consume)

    ReplyDelete

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