Both of the sweet and sour sauces our local grocery stores carry in the Asian foods section contain bell peppers, which most certainly aren’t in the type of sweet and sour sauces you get at a Chinese food place around here. :dubious: Unsurprisingly, neither tastes anything like the sauce I want, either.
Is there a commercially available sweet and sour sauce that doesn’t contain any kind of peppers but *does *contain pineapple and maybe cherry?
I would ask a restaurant supply store.
I would ask the restaurant.
Duck Sauce is much closer, also orange source for ducks.
When I make sweet-sour dishes at home I don’t use any sort of bottled sweet-sour sauce. I’m not sure whether restaurants do or not. I don’t often order sweet-sour dishes at restaurants because I find them much too sweet for my taste. I did find two brands of bottled sauce with no peppers, but I have no idea if they taste the way you want them to.
Ka-Me brand Sweet & Sour Sauce has no peppers unless you count “Paprika Color”.
The ingredients are "Water, Sugar, Vinegar, Pineapple, Modified Potato Starch, Salt, Tomato Paste, Onion, Paprika Color. " cite
Ah-So brand Sweet + Sour Sauce has the ingredients "Water, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Apricots and/or Peaches, Vinegar, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Spices, Sodium Benzoate (Preservatives), Potassium Sorbate and Sulphur Dioxide (Preservatives). " cite
While it is possible that the restaurant is making the sauce, it is more likely they are buying it from a foodservice distributor.
Now, one could just approach the restaurant and say, “I really like the sweet & sour sauce you use and would like to use it when cooking at home, could I buy a gallon from you?”. They should be receptive to that (that’s how Chef Boyardee got started), And that works even if they make the sauce themselves. (Make it clear you are willing to come back in a week, in case they’d need to order more supplies to be able to spare a gallon of sauce).
But perhaps you don’t want the restaurant to know you are buying the sauce.
In my experience, it is fairly easy to find out the foodservice distributor used by most restaurants. Boxes of paper products and cups, for example, will often have the company name in huge letters. But for Chinese food, even the delivery trucks are often marked only in Chinese characters, which I can’t read.
If they get their stuff from a company like Sysco, or US Foodservice, you can try to find another restaurant that uses the same company, then approach them ans ask if they will special order some of that sauce for you. When I worked in a restaurant we ordered a number of items that we resold directly to employees and did not otherwise use or sell, like hot dogs or bulk cinnamon.
Or if you are lucky enough that the company is local, they will usually sell stuff rright out of the warehouse.
I made this thread a while back asking about McDonalds condiment ripoffs. There was a thread linked in there that was even bigger that had some advice on chinese sweet and sour sauce ripoffs.
If you are looking for something that tastes like McDonalds sweet and sour sauce (did you mean that flavor or something else?) then thisis a near identical match.
Let’s move this over to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
FWIW, here is a recipe for making your own. It looks easy enough, even a clumsy schlub like me could make it.
This way, you can add whatever goop you want, alter the ratios, etc.
I’m guessing the OP is asking about the red sweet and sour sauce you usually find in restaurants but rarely see in stores. It’s not duck sauce. It’s a bright red color and it’s smoother and thinner.
I think World Harbors Sweet n Sour sauce is pretty close. If you can’t find that, you might try La Choy brand.
There might be a base mix or syrup for it available in bulk, but it’s such a simple recipe that I suspect it’s nearly always made from scratch - that and the fact that it’s thickened with cornstarch (which means it would be set to a thick gel when cold and therefore hard to pour out and reheat.
It does congeal overnight in the fridge, forming little lumps. It’s still entirely yummy that way – Chinese and Italian foods are nearly as wonderful cold as leftovers as they are hot and fresh! – but it is kinda gross to look at.
The stuff I’ve had sets to a block of rubbery gel in the pot when it cools on the counter - before it’s even refrigerated - I guess it depends on the amount of cornstarch used to thicken it (or maybe other places might be using arrowroot or potato starch or some other thickener such as a food gum)
I never knew Chef Boyardee got started selling sweet & sour sauce. Do you know when he switched to Italian dishes and why?
I think I paid like a dollar for an 8oz cup of it at my local Chinese joint.
Most of those places are individually owned. Just tell the owner you want a whole mess of it and you’re willing to pay. I guarantee he won’t turn you away.
It takes little to disgruntle a penguin. :dubious:
1/4 cup rice vinegar, OR 1/8 cup rice vinegar and 1/8 cup wine.
3 tablespoons brown sugar.
Soy sauce and some form of hot sauce to taste.
Red food coloring, 2 drops optional.
Mix 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch with a small amount of water, add when the other ingredients are warm in the pan, stir often so that it does not become lumpy.
I’d go with Lee Kum Kee’s sweet and sour sauce. Nothing but a bit of paprika, which I bet is for color.
Particularly since every chinese restaurant I’ve been to seems to have its own take on S&S, so how’s anyone here to know if a store carried brand matches your particular favorite chinese place?
Oh, lord. I’d just started to put this thread out of my mind.
You’re first going to have to figure out what you mean by “sweet and sour sauce”.