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Home / Recipes / Chinese / Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

Golden stir fry sauce dripping from a spoon above a jar of the sauce.
Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe
Anadi Misra

By Anadi Misra · May 12, 2025

Chinese8 min

About this recipe

Make the best stir fry sauce in just 5 minutes with this simple recipe. Bold, flavorful, and incredibly easy to prepare, it transforms any stir fry into a restaurant-quality meal.

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The Best Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe!

Are you looking to make more Asian creations in the kitchen? I admit that I indulge in Chinese cooking in phases! Not sure why I do, but I suppose there’s just so much delicious food to eat and my mood changes on what I want to eat. Well, thanks to preparing this easy stir fry sauce recipe, I’ve been enjoying Asian-inspired recipes lately! I’ve never actually been to China, but I’d love to travel there someday and explore the cuisine firsthand. However, you can bring a taste of China anytime with this Chinese-inspired stir fry sauce as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge! You can get started on your cooking journey free today by signing up to my email newsletter, plus you’ll receive all of my new recipes delivered straight to your inbox!

12 servings
easy
Golden stir fry sauce dripping from a spoon above a jar of the sauce.
Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe
Anadi Misra

By Anadi Misra · May 12, 2025

Chinese8 min12 servingseasy
Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe
Anadi Misra

By Anadi Misra · May 12, 2025

Chinese8 min12 servingseasy
Glazed salmon with bok choy and scallion garnish in a white bowl.

To follow along with this life-changing homemade stir fry sauce recipe, be sure to watch the video! If you’re not already, it would mean a lot to me if you could please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and don’t forget to press the bell button so you’re notified when all of my video recipes are live! Let’s get mixing!

Homemade stir fry sauce in a glass jar held in hands, showing dark brown liquid with visible spices and ingredients.

Why You Need to Make Your Own Simple Stir Fry Sauce!

  • Easy and fast to make: This stir fry sauce recipe is extremely quick and simple to make! All you need to do is gather your ingredients and mix! There are some optional additional steps if you would like, but in essence, this sauce is one of the easiest out there, and you can quite honestly make this whenever you would like!
  • This sauce is loaded with flavor: You’ll be obsessed with this Asian stir fry sauce! When you make this, you’ll notice the wonderful aroma from the ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. A little bit of this Asian stir fry sauce will really go a long way in enhancing your food.
  • Make-ahead friendly: You can make this when you’ve got a pocket of time and it’ll be ready for you in your fridge for whenever you need it! Read on to see how to properly store this stir fry sauce so it stays fresh as long as possible.
  • Plenty of uses: This stir fry sauce recipe is extremely versatile, and you’ll want to explore plenty of recipes using this sauce! Check out just a couple of ideas later on in this post!
Homemade stir fry sauce in a glass jar with visible spices and ingredients mixed together.

Dietary Information for This Quick Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

This 5 Minute Stir Fry Sauce recipe is…

  • Vegetarian and vegan
  • Can be gluten-free: See below on how to do this.
  • Can be low-carb: See below on how to do this.
  • Low in fat
  • Low in calories

Tools Needed to Make This Basic Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

  • Salt crock
  • Ramekins
  • Measuring cups
  • Measuring spoons
  • Garlic press
  • Whisk
  • Grater
Homemade stir fry sauce in a glass jar with dark brown liquid and visible spices settling at the bottom.

Ingredients for This Quick and Easy Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

Scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button to see all ingredients and their quantities. The recipe card will also allow you to scale the recipe based on how many portions of sauce you want to make! By default, this recipe will yield about 12 small servings.

Ingredients for stir fry sauce: cornstarch, rice vinegar, soy sauce, chili flakes, sesame oil, and butter on white surface.
  • Soy sauce: You can use a low sodium soy sauce if you want.
  • Rice vinegar: You can use either seasoned or unseasoned rice vinegar. I’ve used seasoned rice vinegar, but if you’re using unseasoned rice vinegar, then you can add more sweetness and/or salt to taste in the final dish you’re preparing.
  • Maple syrup: Use your favourite type of maple syrup. I’m using dark maple syrup since it has lots of flavour.
  • Sesame oil: You can also toast your sesame oil if you would like, as I’ll mention later on in the variations portion of this post.
  • Red pepper flakes: A little bit to add heat to the sauce.
  • Ginger: Fresh ginger root, grated.
  • Garlic cloves: Mince fresh garlic cloves.
  • Fish sauce: Optional, but to add umami and savoryness to round out the sauce.
  • Corn starch: Optional to thicken the sauce.

How to Make Stir Fry Sauce From Scratch

Combine all the ingredients together besides the cornstarch.

Stir fry sauce ingredients combined in a glass jar with soy sauce bottle and minced garlic nearby.
Dark soy sauce and other liquid ingredients mixed together in a glass jar for stir fry sauce.
Dark soy sauce being poured into a glass jar for homemade stir fry sauce.
Dark stir fry sauce being poured into a glass jar with soy sauce bottle and minced garlic nearby.
Dark stir fry sauce mixed in a Mason jar with soy sauce bottle and minced garlic nearby on kitchen counter.
Minced garlic being added to a jar of dark brown stir fry sauce mixture.
Pouring dark brown stir fry sauce with minced garlic into a glass measuring jar.
Mason jar filled with dark brown stir fry sauce with visible spices and ingredients mixed together.

If using the sauce to create a gravy, combine 1/2 to 1 tsp of cornstarch with 2-3 Tbsp of cold water and whisk well. Add to the sauce and simmer for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Stir fry sauce with cornstarch slurry mixed in, showing brown liquid with red spice flecks in a glass jar.

Tips for the Perfect Quick Easy Stir Fry Sauce

  • The sauce has components to hit the main flavours that make up a dish, saltiness from soy sauce, sourness from rice vinegar, sweetness from maple syrup, umami from fish sauce, or oyster sauce, heat from chili flakes and aroma from the ginger and garlic. You can now try this sauce, and adjust and tweak any of these components to make it personable to your palate.
  • For a silky gravy-like finish, add the cornstarch slurry only if you’re cooking a saucier stir-fry or want to coat noodles or rice. Let the sauce simmer for 1–2 minutes after adding the slurry. It’ll thicken and bring the flavours together.
  • Be ready for when the craving hits! Make a bigger batch and store it in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week. Great for last-minute meals!
  • This sauce works beautifully as a marinade for tofu, chicken, beef, or shrimp.
Spoonful of golden-brown stir fry sauce with visible garlic and spice flakes held over a jar.
How to Store Easy Quick Stir Fry Sauce▼

All you need to do is transfer the sauce into a mason jar or in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge. Due to the garlic in here, I wouldn’t keep this sauce in the fridge for longer than 5 days.

Variations of Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

  • Gluten-free: Use a certified gluten-free soy sauce or substitute with coconut aminos or tamari.
  • Sweetener: Other delicious sweeteners for this stir fry sauce recipe would be honey or brown sugar. Keep in mind that if you use honey as a sweetener, this sauce recipe will no longer be vegan.
  • Flavour: You can toast the sesame oil with garlic and ginger to add depth to the sauce.
  • Thickness: If you want to use this sauce as a gravy, then you can make a corn starch slurry. Combine 1/2 to 1 tsp of cornstarch with 2-3 Tbsp of cold water and whisk well.
  • Keto: If you are opting out of thickening the sauce, then this stir fry sauce recipe is keto-friendly. However, if you do want to thicken the sauce, then you can skip the corn starch and instead use arrowroot powder or xantham gum. For the sweetness, you can use a keto-friendly sweetener to cut the carbs, such as monk fruit.
  • Spicier: Add more chili flakes or add chilli garlic sauce.
  • Umami: I’ve added fish sauce to add umami to the sauce. Alternatively, you can use oyster sauce.

How to Use Stir Fry Sauce

As I mention in my free motivational guide to exploring your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, having a theme for the week can get you going to try out plenty of new recipes for lunch or dinner! With this multipurpose stir fry sauce on hand, you can explore lots of easy and satisfying Asian-style recipes, from main dishes to vegetable sides. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Main Dishes

  • Tofu Noodle Stir Fry
  • Keto Egg Roll in a Bowl
  • Super Simple Chinese Egg Fried Rice
  • Better than Takeout Beef Fried Rice
  • 30-Minute Shrimp Fried Rice
  • Proteins: Add this to flavour your pan-seared chicken breasts or chicken thighs, pork, steak, or tofu!
  • Fillings: I’ve been loving making sushi cones and spring rolls with rice paper, and this sauce has been super convenient to flavour my fillings for those! You can make chicken and veggie fillings or tofu and veggie fillings, and add the sauce at the end.
Pan-seared chicken thighs glazed with stir fry sauce, served with bok choy and jasmine rice on a white plate.

Sides

  • Noodles: This will be great in any noodles, such as udon, egg noodles, soba, or you could even make your own Silver Needle Noodles!
  • Rice: Mix this in with some simple steamed white rice or even in sushi rice.
  • Vegetable stir fries: You can use this with cabbage, carrots, green beans, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, onions, and peppers!

Other Fast and Delicious Sauces

  • No-Cook Italian Pizza Sauce
  • 15 Minute Marinara Sauce
  • Authentic Greek Tzatziki Sauce
  • Classic Basil Pesto Sauce
  • Fresh Quick Chimichurri Sauce

Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.with.anadi. Thank you!

Recipe by Anadi Misra

Flavorful 5-Minute Simple Stir Fry Sauce Recipe

Make the best stir fry sauce in just 5 minutes with this simple recipe. Bold, flavorful, and incredibly easy to prepare, it transforms any stir fry into a restaurant-quality meal.

5.0 · 1 rating

Saved to your collection
··
·
·

8 min

Prep

8 min

Total

12

servings

makes 1½ cups

easy

Level

Ingredients

··
·
·

Ingredients

Tap any quantity to scale

  • (45 ml) soy sauceShop →
  • (15 ml) rice vinegar(or 1½ tbsp for a sharper sauce)Shop →
  • (15 ml) maple syrupShop →
  • (15 ml) sesame oilShop →
  • (1 g) red pepper flakes(to taste)Shop →
  • (3 g) fresh ginger(grated)
  • garlic cloves(minced)
  • fish sauce(optional, splash)Shop →
  • (1 g) corn starch(mixed with equal part water to make slurry; optional, for thickening)

Instructions

  1. 1

    Combine all the ingredients together besides the cornstarch.

    Combine all the ingredients together besides the cornstarch.

  2. 2

    If using the sauce to create a gravy, combine ½–1 tsp of cornstarch with 2–3 tbsp of cold water and whisk well. Add to the sauce and simmer for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

    If using the sauce to create a gravy, combine ½–1 tsp of cornstarch with 2–3 tbsp of cold water and whisk well. Add to the sauce and simmer for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Nutrition per serving

26

Calories

2g

Protein

2g

Carbs

1g

Fat

0g

Fiber

1g

Sugar

210mg

Sodium

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Filed under

sauce recipeseasy recipesquick recipesstir fry saucestir fry sauce recipeegg-lessdairy-free

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