After years of making Chinese recipes at home, I found myself measuring the same ingredients over and over. Eventually I started mixing a jar of sauce ahead of time. It isn’t meant to replace the unique seasonings that make each recipe different, but it gets me halfway there on a busy weeknight.
If you walk down your grocery aisles, you will see endless prepared stir fry sauces, but they are usually loaded with sodium, chemicals and other ingredients I honestly can’t pronounce. They take away your ability to create a unique dish because the flavors tend to be overpowering and one dimensional. So rather than using a prepared sauce from the store, you can easily make your own and then when dinner rolls around, all you have to do is:
Stir-fry your meat, vegetables and aromatics (garlic and ginger etc.)
Add a few tablespoons of your prepared sauce.
Finish with a splash of cornstarch slurry to thicken everything.
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The Real Secret:
When I first learned this, it completely changed the way I approached stir-frying at home.
The real secret isn’t the sauces. It’s the preparation. As the French say “mis en place”, everything in its place.
What that basically means is that before you start cooking you want everything cut up and ready to go because you aren’t going to have time to stop and chop garlic or ginger or your meat once you start cooking.
The Sauces:
House Brown Sauce
This is the workhorse of the kitchen. It’s generally made from soy sauce, oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, chicken stock and a touch of sugar. It’s a balanced savory sauce that’s ready at a moment’s notice.
Quick Chinese Beef with Broccoli
With a few quick additions, it becomes dozens of different dishes.
Makes 2 cups
1 cup Chicken Broth, low sodium or water
1/2 cup Regular Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce (essential for that deep color and rich body)
1/4 cup Oyster Sauce
2 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (or dry sherry)
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Chinese Black Vinegar (Chinkiang)
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1/2 tsp Ground White Pepper
House White Sauce
Lighter dishes often begin with a delicate sauce made from chicken stock, garlic, ginger, rice wine and white pepper. You’ll find it handy in seafood dishes and simple vegetable stir-fries where you want the ingredients to shine rather than be covered by a dark sauce.
Makes 2 cups:
1 1/2 cups Chicken Broth, low sodium.
1/4 cup Shaoxing Rice Wine (or dry sherry)
1 Tbsp Regular Soy Sauce (just enough for depth without darkening)
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Ground White Pepper
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
Sweet, Spicy and Sour Sauce
Sichuan dishes use that wonderful mixture of sweet spicy and sour which is so addictive. This is a good sauce to get you started and then you can adjust additional ingredients as you need. This tends to be the sauce I lean towards, due to my fondness for spicy dishes.
MaPo Tofu: Stir-Fry Tofu with Szechuan Flavors
Makes 2 cups:
3/4 cup Chicken Broth, low sodium or water
1/3 cup Chili Garlic Paste
1/3 cup Regular Soy Sauce
3 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
3 Tbsp Chinese Black Vinegar (Chinkiang)
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 tsp ground Szechuan Peppercorns (optional, for authentic ma-la numbing heat)
Think of these as starting points rather than finished recipes. Many of my Chinese dishes build on these same foundations, adding ingredients unique to each recipe. Think of these as foundation sauces for home cooking—not substitutes for the techniques and seasonings that make each recipe unique.
Bringing the Method Home
If you enjoy cooking Chinese food at home, make a batch of your favorite sauce and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator. I leave the cornstarch out until I’m actually cooking so it stays fresh and pours easily.
You’ll be surprised how much faster dinner comes together. Now that you understand these foundation sauces, you’ll start recognizing them in part throughout my Chinese recipes. Beef with Broccoli, Black Bean Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, Kung Pao Shrimp, MaPo Tofu and many others, all build on these same techniques with just a few changes.
Many of the Chinese recipes on The Pasadena Chef are build on these same foundations, then layer in regional ingredients and techniques that give each dish its distinctive character. Dishes like Kung Pao Chicken, Twice-Cooked Pork, Mapo Tofu and others rely on ingredients such as Pixian doubanjiang, fermented black beans, dried chilies and Sichuan peppercorns that define their regional character.
These foundation sauces give you a head start, but every finished dish still depends on its own seasonings, aromatics and cooking technique.