Sweet Thai Chile Sauce

There’s not much to say about this other than it’s freaking fantastic!  This stuff tastes like unicorn blood, I swear.

Lightly sweet, with a slight tang, and a punch in the face of heat (if you choose, and you should).

I ran into this recipe a long time ago, and I’ve been devouring it ever since.  I’ve probably had more people ask for this recipe than any other, and I go through this stuff like it’s going out of style.

My favorite way to eat this sauce is when it’s drenching sticky calrose rice.  Nothing more, just rice and this killer sauce.

Sweet Thai Chile Sauce

3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 Tbsp salt (yes, I know the spoon in the pic is tsp…)
2 Tbsp Sambal

1 Tbsp potato starch
1 Tbsp Water

**NOTE: You could certainly use 7-8 red bird thai chiles if you can find them instead of sambal, and you could also cut back on the sambal for less heat.  I don’t  recommend using the more common green bird thai chiles, or other green chiles like jalapeno or serrano.  There’s something about their herby green flavor that turned me off.

And if you don’t have potato starch, corn starch would work, but make sure you continue the cooking for a couple of minutes afterwards to cook off the commonly starchy flavor that corn adds.  Your sauce might be slightly more cloudy if you use corn instead of potato.  Also, you could use arrowroot, but I noticed in the past, that it tended to separate in the ‘fridge after a couple of weeks.

Put the first 6 ingredients in a blender and buzz for a while, until orangey and kinda frothy.  Everything should be well blended, but you should still see small chunks of chiles and garlic.

Put the blended mixture into a small pot and bring to a simmer.  Cook the mixture about 15-20 minutes on a low simmer, for the flavors to blend.  Meanwhile, mix the starch and water in a small container, and after the sauce has cooked for a couple of minutes, slowly add the starchy water to thicken.  Don’t just dump it all in! Depending on how much starch you used, your sauce will thicken differently.  Dribble a little in, stir, and then cook a couple of minutes (~5) while the starch thickens.  Look at the consistency and judge if you need more.  I’ve definitely messed this up, and ended up with sweet thai chile pudding before, so don’t over do the starch!

I hope you find this sauce as delectable as I do, and now I can just direct people to this page when they inevitably ask for this recipe!