BASIC CHINESE STIR-FRY SAUCE

UPDATE: 11/25/2021 I've decided to add a video for the bulk basic stir fry sauce and aromatics.  After my restaurant experience, I realized that not only is it more efficient to have this basic stir fry sauce and aromatics readily available in my refrigerator, it also encourages other family members to quickly whip up a healthy stir fry, because the thought of assembling the marinade, sauce and aromatics is gone!  The bulk stir fry sauce is non-perishable and will last in the refrigerator for several months.

For me, a delicious stir fry is a dish with perfectly cooked tasty morsels of marinated meat, with an abundance of colorful vegetables and a light sauce that is there to augment the taste of the ingredients rather than drown the ingredients.

When my daughters were young, they loved having extra sauce and that is how I cooked my stir fries.  However, as they've gotten older, I've reduced drenching the stir fry in the sauce as I prefer the cleaner taste of the ingredients.  However, the amount of sauce is personal preference.

There are many different flavors in Chinese cuisine.  However, there is a basic stir fry sauce that you can use that will always make your stir fry taste good. Use these basic sauces as a foundation on which you can start building your different flavors. Experiment by adding supplemental flavors to create different tastes.  

Tips to making a basic Chinese stir fry sauce.

The key to a good sauce is to have enough sauce so that all your vegetables are coated with a layer of flavoring, but not too much sauce so that your ingredients are swimming in the liquid, and it ends up becoming a stew. (Unless you have kids and they just like to eat rice and sauce, like mine used to do!) 

Most sauces require the basics of oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, rice wine, water or chicken stock and cornstarch.  You can make a large container of your sauce and refrigerate it for future use.  You can make it without the water so that it's a concentrate and just add the water / stock when needed or you can combine the ingredients every time you need to.

Corn starch.

In order for the sauce to adhere to the ingredients, a corn starch - water mixture is necessary.  

• Make it before stir frying.

The sauce mixture should be already prepared BEFORE stir-frying to avoid having to make it while the vegetables are cooking and thus overcooking your stir fry.

• Stir your corn starch / sauce mixture before you pour.

The cornstarch in the mixture does tend to settle to the bottom of the container so make sure you stir it up first before adding it into the wok.  When adding it to the wok, pour the sauce along the side of the wok so that it catches the heated metal and thickens as it slides down the edges.

• Cook thoroughly.

Make sure you cook the sauce until it thickens nicely.  Otherwise your sauce will have a gritty mouthfeel from the uncooked cornstarch.

• Don't add dry corn-starch directly to the stir-fry.

Do not try to just add dry cornstarch without mixing it in a water / stock solution. Otherwise, you will have lumps of powder scattered throughout your stir fry.

Oyster Sauce.

Like soy sauce, there is a wide range of tastes and quality with various oyster sauce brands.  The premium sauces have a premium price tag and are better tasting.  I tend to use the premium sauces as dipping sauces and the regular sauces as a cooking ingredient. If you prefer a monosodium glutamate (MSG) -free sauce, they have those too.  (Usually in green bottles!) For me, I like this brand.  There are vegetarian options that are flavored with shitake mushrooms as well.

Chicken bouillon or mushroom bouillon

I prefer using the chicken bouillon POWDER rather than the cubes as I use the bouillon powder as a salt alternative so I would sprinkle it over the dish at the end, and it's a little difficult to do that with the cubes! I prefer using the Premium chicken bouillon powder that does not have MSG (monosodium glutamate) rather than the regular chicken bouillon The actual sauce does not include the bouillon powder, but can be added at the end depending on your taste. For a vegetarian option, the mushroom bouillon powder can be substituted.

See Chinese Cooking Essential Ingredients.

Black bean sauce.

This sauce is a mixture of fermented and salted black beans with garlic. 

Southern style "clear" sauce.

The Cantonese "clear" sauce is lighter in color and taste and goes well with vegetarian dishes or stir-fries made with lighter colored meats like chicken and pork.

Northern style brown sauce.

This darker and bolder sauce goes well with beef and lamb.  This sauce is achieved by adding brown sugar and a dark soy sauce.

Hunan / Szechuan spice sauce.

This sauce contains spicy dried peppers and Szechuan pepper corns.