Apply it to meat for a Chinese-style barbecue, or use as a dip or spread.
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Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.
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Why It Works
- The ingredients combine to give this sauce a sweet and salty balance.
- Use it as a sauce, dip, or spread.
Char siu doesn't refer to a sauce particularly, but the final product after this "Chinese barbecue sauce" is applied to pork that is hung onto fork skewers and roasted. Still, there's a fairly common base set of ingredients including hoisin, honey, soy sauce, sherry, and Chinese five spice powder that imparts the ubiquitous flavor and glossy sheen to Char Siu.
The resulting sauce is sweet and salty with a distinct Asian flavor from the fermented soy in the hoisin, and a spicy kick from the five spice powder—a mixture of anise, fennel, cinnamon, cloves, and Sichuan peppercorns.
You can add food coloring to give it that standard red hue, but last time I did that, my Chinese-style spare ribs looked like some mutant, unnaturally bright red form of meat. Since then I've been sticking to the sauce sans food coloring, which results in a more earthy red color that I find more appealing.
Use this sauce as a marinade on pork belly, ribs, or loin—any piece of pork you want to give an Asian barbecue flavor to, but it's also great as a dip or spread as well.
July 2011
Recipe Details
Char Siu Sauce Recipe | Sauced
Serves8 servings
Makes1 cup
Ingredients
1/3 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons dry sherry
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
Directions
In a small bowl, mix together hoisin sauce, honey, soy sauce, sherry, and five spice powder.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__serious_eats__seriouseats.com__recipes__20110703-159581-char-siu-sauce-step-1-81e8244ad94f45aca44b0db7023bac49.jpg "Char Siu Sauce Recipe | Sauced (3)")
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 63 | Calories |
| 0g | Fat |
| 14g | Carbs |
| 1g | Protein |
Show Full Nutrition Label
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| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Servings: 8 | |
| Amount per serving | |
| Calories | 63 |
| % Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat 0g | 1% |
| Saturated Fat 0g | 0% |
| Cholesterol 0mg | 0% |
| Sodium 643mg | 28% |
| Total Carbohydrate 14g | 5% |
| Dietary Fiber 0g | 2% |
| Total Sugars 12g | |
| Protein 1g | |
| Vitamin C 0mg | 1% |
| Calcium 9mg | 1% |
| Iron 0mg | 2% |
| Potassium 61mg | 1% |
| *The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. | |
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)
