Recipe for schezwan sauce (shezuan sauce)

Last updated on May 23rd, 2025 at 11:31 am

Recipe for schezwan sauce - Make this super easy, fiery schezuan sauce at home with easily available ingredients. This sauce is great to make schezwan noodles with or to serve it as a dip with Chicken Dimsums!

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This sauce is a perfect example of Indo-Chinese food culture. Do not be fooled when this schezwan sauce tastes sweet at first; you'll feel the spiciness shortly after. My favorite way to use this sweet and spicy sauce is to use it as a dip with Chicken Momos / Dimsums. This is one of those sauces which I like to always keep in my refrigerator for a quick meal.

Compared to the store-bought version of Schezwan Sauces, this recipe for schezwan sauce is made sans preservatives. In fact, we use the most basic method to keep this sauce for a long time by using a tad bit more oil.

Recipe for Schezwan sauce:

What goes into Schezwan Sauce?

A whole lot of dried chillies go into making this recipe for schezwan sauce. I use regular chillies that are easily available. You can use whatever variety of Indian or Thai red dried chillies you like. But bear in mind that each variety has a different level of hotness.

Based on the hotness, you will have to adjust the quantity accordingly. Use only dry chillies that you have already used otherwise, go to an Indian store and buy the simple non shriveled dried chillies.

Other ingredients are pretty much pantry ingredients. Since this is an Indo-Chinese sauce, sesame oil is perfect for this. If you don't have any, you can use flavorless vegetable oil.

Onion, ginger, and garlic add flavor to the sauce where onion is optional. The ginger and garlic are important to this sauce; they add depth. Rice wine vinegar and tomato ketchup add some tanginess. Soy sauce is what brings the Chinese to the Indo-Chinese; I like to add only a little bit of it. All these ingredients combine to form a very complex flavor.

Serving suggestions:

There are a dozen different ways you can make use of this recipe for Schezwan Sauce; some of these are listed here:

• Serve it as a dip with momos
• Make Drums of Heaven using this sauce
• Boil some noodles and saute them in this sauce with a few veggies. Schezwan Noodles will be ready in minutes.
• Similarly, you can make some delicious Schezwan Fried Rice.

How to make this Schezwan Sauce:

Ingredients

• 40-45 medium-sized Dry Red Chillies*
• 1 small Red Onion, finely minced, or use shallots
• 10 large Garlic Cloves, finely minced
• 1.5 inch Root Ginger, finely minced, skin removed
• ½ tsp Soy Sauce
• 1 tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar, or regular white vinegar
• 2 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
• 2 tbsp Granulated white Sugar, or brown sugar*
• 1.5 tsp Salt
• 8 tbsp Sesame Oil, (see notes)
• 2 cups Water

Instructions

To make the Chilli Paste:

• Heat the 2 cups of water until it is warmed up. Add the dried chillies to the water, cover and let it sit for 30-45 minutes.
• Remove the soaked-up chillies into a blender; reserve the water. Pulseit a few times and then continue blending until it is smooth. Add the reserved water little by little, ONLY if required.
• Transfer the chilli paste to a clean bowl.

To make the Sauce:

• Heat a sauté pan or a skillet and add the sesame oil to it.
• Once the oil is hot, add the onions, ginger, and garlic to it. Sauté until the onions get soft.
• Add in the ground chilli paste. Followed by the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, tomato ketchup, sugar, and salt.
• Mix it all once vigorously. Reduce the flame to medium and let the chilli paste thicken up. The oil will separate from the chilli paste at this point.
• Remove from heat and let it cool down. Transfer it to a clean glass jar and store it in the refrigerator!

Notes:

• I like to use Indian long variety of dried chillies. You can use any type of dried chillies you like. But based on the hotness, you might have to up or lessen the number of chilies.
• I use white sugar when I need a bright red color. But the flavor is better with the use of brown sugar; which of course adds a bit of a dark color to the schezwan sauce. If you arent bothered about the color, go with brown sugar.
• Using 8 tablespoons of oil may seem scary but if you intend to store this schezwan sauce in the refrigerator, the oil will float on the top and will keep in the sauce good for a long time. This way the sauce stays good in the refrigerator for up to a month. You can drain the excess oil with every tablespoon you use and leave the oil in the jar.
• If you intend to freeze the schezwan sauce, you can halve the amount of oil and make this sauce. Freeze in an airtight container or Ziploc. It stays good in the refrigerator for up to 3 months or more.

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