My favorite Sweet Chili Sauce is the one made from Jufran. Yes, my favorite dipping sauce for Lumpiang Shanghai. Just imagine a super crispy golden brown shanghai dipped in the red translucent sauce of sweet chili sauce. Who wouldn’t drool? Any Filipino would understand how delicious a shanghai with Sweet Chili Sauce. Some of you may wonder where you can buy Jufran Sweet Chili Sauce, but don’t you worry. Even if its not available to your place. You can make some homemade recipe that you can store in the fridge.
HOMEMADE SWEET CHILI SAUCE
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup vinegar, (cane vinegar)
- 1 cup sugar (or honey)
- 2 tsp fresh ginger root, grated
- 1 tsp garlic, grated or minced
- 2-3 tsp hot chili pepper, minced (seeds removed)
- 1 small red bell pepper, cored and minced
- 2 tsp ketchup
- 2 tsp cassava starch + dissolved in some water
*alternatively you may use cornstarch but cassava starch will give you a better sauce texture.
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Pour water and vinegar into a saucepan, and bring to a boil over high heat.
- Stir in sugar, ginger, garlic, bell pepper, chili pepper, and ketchup.
- Over low heat, simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in cassava starch mixture. Remove saucepan from stove to let it cool.
- Then transfer to a sterilized bottle cover tightly. Your sauce is ready for serving. Just keep the Sweet Chili Sauce refrigerated in air tight bottles for longer shelf life
- Note: You may also blend it first with extra water to have a very fine texture of chili peppers and other ingredients on the sauce.
- When removing the pepper seeds, make sure not to use bare hands. Touching the pepper seeds can burn your skin, and its hard to wash it off with water and even soap. So save yourself from any hassle and use plastic gloves.