Chinese takeaways use a variety of sauces, but the most common are soy-based, including light/regular soy sauce (sheng chou), dark soy sauce for color, and rich oyster sauce, often combined with garlic, ginger, rice wine, sugar, and cornstarch for a base "brown sauce" or gravy, alongside popular sweet & sour, chili, and satay sauces.
Ground bean sauce is a key Cantonese ingredient for marinades, stir-fries, braises, and sauces. In Cantonese, we call it, “meen see jeung,” and use it in stewed dishes and Chinese BBQ recipes like our Takeout-style Chinese Spare Ribs. Made with fermented yellow soy beans and spices, it's less sweet than hoisin.
A good Chinese restaura will make their own in house sauces. Some of them can get sauces in giant boxes that have an inner bag, and are pre made. General Tso sauce is easy to make. Here's my recipe.
Nutrition
Soy sauce probably the most widely known of all Chinese sauces. Made from fermented soybeans, it has a rich, salty flavor, a dark brown color, and a liquid consistency. It is ubiquitous in Chinese cooking, and is used in soups in stir fry dishes. It is also a component of many of the other sauces on this list.
There are 5 types of Mother Sauce namely Hollandaise Sauce, Bechamel Sauce, Tomato Sauce, Veloute Sauce, Espagnole Sauce.
Chinese white sauce is a light, clear sauce made of stock, garlic, and ginger. It's thickened with cornstarch and can be used in any stir fry recipe!
18 Best Chinese Sauces: Origins, Flavours and Serving Suggestions
Jimmy's Sate Sauce has long been the sate brand of choice for many Chinese and pan-Asian restaurants and takeaways across the nation, as well as home cooks.
Cornstarch serves an essential role in creating the glossy, thickened sauces that cling lovingly to ingredients in a stir-fry or drape over items in a dish, providing texture and depth.
Peking sauce is closely related to hoisin sauce, but not quite the same. Hoisin is thick and sweet, while Peking sauce adds tangy and aromatic notes from ingredients like vinegar, garlic and ginger. The result is a more balanced flavour, though the familiar base of hoisin still comes through.
And you'll find this in every Chinese takeaway but you'll never guess Gok's two secret ingredients for making his delicious beef in OK sauce - tomato ketchup and brown sauce! He's in the kitchen to show us just how easy it is to make.
Soy Sauce(Jiangyou) usage in Chinese Food
Soy Sauce is the king of all sauces for Chinese. The usage of soy sauce in Chinese cooking is as important as it is salt & pepper in western cuisine. Chinese use soy sauce almost every day; every Asian household will keep at least one bottle of soy sauce in their house.
Sticky Sauce:
Herbs and seasonings
Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, fennel, cloves and white peppers and smart weed are also used in different regions. To add extra flavor to the dishes, many Chinese cuisines also contain dried Chinese mushrooms, dried baby shrimp, dried tangerine peel, and dried Sichuan chillies.
Some basic essential sauces are oyster sauce, soy sauce (light and dark), black vinegar, sesame oil, chili oil (there are many kinds - look for this brand). Other essentials for Chinese cooking: Chinese 5 spice, Chinese peppercorns (essential for Sichuan), star anise, and white pepper.
Ketchup. Everyone knows ketchup. This sauce is famous for its pairing with classic American foods like french fries, hamburgers, and hot dogs, but truly it can go with any meat, many vegetables, and even some fruits. A popular ketchup combo is mixing it with eggs, scrambled or hard-boiled.
Basic Formulas
All you need to do is stir fry cold rice for 2 minutes in a hot frying pan, then make a hole in the centre of the rice and tip in some beaten eggs. Leave the eggs for 45 seconds and then stir the part-cooked eggs into the rice. Finally, fry for 1 more minute, then add soy sauce and sesame oil. Easy peasy!
Béchamel (also known as white sauce) is the basic sauce known as the “mother sauce”. It's used across many cuisines, you may know it best as a component of lasagne. Béchamel begins with a blonde roux, which is butter and flour cooked together until straw in colour. Milk is added to turn it into a rich sauce.
Best Sauces to Pair With Chicken
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