Hoisin Sauce – A Beautiful Mess

Salty and sweet, this homemade hoisin sauce is your secret ingredient for so many different Asian-inspired dishes. You can use hoisin as a glaze, as a stir fry sauce, as a dipping sauce, and more!

While there’s nothing wrong with store-bought hoisin, it’s SO easy to make your own you’ll never go back! This also gives you the chance to customize this sauce to your preferences.

Related: Next up, try our homemade stir fry sauce and easy spring roll sauces.

Ingredients

• Soy sauce
• Molasses
• Sesame oil
• Rice vinegar
• Peanut butter
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Sriracha
• Cornstarch + water

Directions

Mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger.

In a small pot, heat the sesame oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for one minute until very fragrant. Then turn the heat down to low and add the soy sauce, molasses, rice vinegar, peanut butter, and sriracha. Whisk to combine.

In a small bowl or glass, whisk together the cornstarch and water to create a slurry. Pour this into the sauce and stir until it begins to thicken (1-2 minutes). Remove from heat.

Tips for Making

• While I most often use natural peanut butter for this recipe, it’s not traditional. Soybean paste would be ideal. But this is not an ingredient I see very often at the grocery stores I shop at, and not something I tend to have on hand. So, if you are like me then natural peanut butter or almond butter are great alternatives.
• If you can’t have soy sauce, tamari or coconut aminos are a pretty good alternative.
• I find mincing the garlic and ginger is easy to do with a cheese grater or microplane.
• Store homemade hoisin sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for at least a week but likely longer.

Serving Suggestions