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This homemade sweet and sour sauce is definitely restaurant quality. My brother-in-law, Roman discovered it on Recipezaar.com. The chicken recipe there is quite good as well; “Chinese-style chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce.” I used this sauce on my Shrimp Spring Rolls.
Ingredients for Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tsp soy sauce
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar,packed (can reduce to 1/3 cup)
1 cup white sugar (for less sweet taste, reduce a few tablespoons)
3/4 cup cold water (or half pineapple juice and half water) I used pineapple juice and it turned out great
4 to 5 Tbsp cornstarch (5 makes a pretty thick sauce)
How to Make Sweet and Sour Sauce:
In a saucepan, combine 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1/3 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar until combined.
In a separate cup, whisk 3/4 cup cold water (or pineapple juice) with 4 Tbsp cornstarch until well blended. Whisk vigorously into the ketchup mixture. Bring to a boil while whisking until bubbly, then reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened, remove from heat. Keep in mind, the sauce will get thicker when cooled.
Sweet and Sour Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1/3 cup white vinegar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed (can reduce to 1/3 cup)
- 1 cup white sugar, for less sweet taste, reduce a few Tbsp
- 3/4 cup cold water, or half pineapple juice and half water
- 4 to 5 Tbsp cornstarch, (5 Tbsp makes a pretty thick sauce)
Instructions
- In a saucepan, combine 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1/3 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar until combined.
- In a separate cup, whisk 3/4 cup cold water (or pineapple juice) with 4 Tbsp cornstarch until well blended. Whisk vigorously into the ketchup mixture. Bring to a boil while whisking until bubbly, then reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened, remove from heat. Keep in mind, the sauce will get thicker when cooled.
Nutrition Per Serving
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Tastes like ketchup. Good texture but even my child noticed the ketchup quality. I measured properly but this just wasn’t great. Tomato paste or sauce would probably be better.
Really good sweet and sour sauce! Actually better than a takeaway / restaurant sauce, easy to make and delicious 🤤
Only thing is all the ingredients are in Cups, would it be possible to add measurements in grams 🙏
Thank you so much for sharing that with me, Rob! I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Oh my goodness! I just did this sauce for meatballs and I tell you, it’s the most delicious thing. Really. Thank you for another great recipe!
You’re welcome, Esther! So glad you loved the recipe!
Could this recipe be doubled & used for chicken or pork in a slow cooker?
Hi Cathy, I have not tried that myself but I think it would work just fine.
Just made this sauce, WOW!! perfect! Can I freeze it with the meatballs??
So glad you loved it! I honestly haven’t tried freezing it to advise. I think it will work, if you try it, please share with us how it goes.
Froze it, so far so good! I actually googled it, it should be good in the freezer for 3 months, I froze it with meatballs and without, so far so good. You need some more freezer friendly meals, I had tried another sweet and sour recipe and it was total crap compared to this one, It really is easy and delicious. Your recipes haven’t failed me ever! Thank you!
That’s so great! Thank you for sharing your research with us!
I am located in Costa Rica. Made it for sweet and sour pork with modifications. 1/2c brown, 1/3c white. Liked this better than my old recipe.
So nice to know that, Brooke. Thanks for sharing that with us!
I love this
love this site
Thank you for stopping by our site Margherita!
hello.i live in korea my name jong min park!
i am not good at english…
however..natashas cooking is good.
please give me some recipes for email..
thank you.be happy.
Hello! Please go to my website and enter your name and email address then click on get free recipes
Hi Natasha, can I use just brown sugar for your sweet and sour sauce? I don’t like using white sugar. Thanks for your thoughts.
That should work too, Nancy. Let me know how it goes.
My nine year old and I made this with the following variations:
Harissa (basically chipotle catsup) instead of regular catsup; 1/2 c white sugar instead of a whole cup, 3/4 cup pineapple juice (no water), and flour instead of corn starch. Used it on chicken/green peppers/scallions/pineapple chunks for sweet and sour chicken. My kids LOVED it and declared it “better than Chinese restaurant chicken.”
I’m so happy you enjoyed that. Thank you for sharing that with us!
I am just curious about how THICK this sauce will turn out when I make some. Most recipes use about 2 tblsp of corn starch.
Can you compare this sauce as thick as most BBQ sauces?
Hi Ed, We make it with 4 to 5 Tbsp of cornstarch (5 makes a pretty thick sauce). If you’d prefer it thicker I would recommend the 5 or more Tbsp.
Sweet and Sour sauce is fairly “runny” but NOT thin. I’m going to use 2 tablespoons and let ya know how it turns out.
Semper Fi 1966-
I have a corn allergy. Do you think i could substitute corn starch for something like potato starch? Or if not is there any idea’s so i may try this recipe. Any advice would be appreciated.
Hi Jenn, I haven’t tried it that way but I imagine that should work well with potato starch.
Arrowroot is a great substitute for corn starch. I use it all the time when baking or to use to thicken any recipe with.
Is there any way of getting the amount of calories in this recipe? My husband and I both love this recipe but I am counting calories and this one was hard to figure out. thanks!
Due to time constraints, I don’t typically include nutritional info, but check out this nutrition analyzer – you can plug in the ingredients from any recipe, select the serving size and it will give you nutritional info, calories, etc. I hope that is helpful to you!
i just made this and to be honest ……its soooo DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!! in making bacon raped matz sticks and this will go amazing with those (i hope <___< ) thank u i tastes so good
I’m so happy you liked it!! This was one of the first recipes I posted (back in Dec 2009) and I completely forgot about it! 🙂 Thanks for the reminder 😉
I tried this at home and it really blends well on frying as a sauce. Thanks for sharing keep posting!
Thanks for sharing that Anna! What kind of recipe have you tried this with?
I should try this. I always buy a bottle of it and it expires on me every time.