Sweet & Sour Sauce—Now with Brown Sugar!

Since I've confessed my secret egg roll obsession, it's only fair that I also share the condiment behind the addiction: the sweet & sour sauce.

It started on a dark night...I came home from my secret and shameful drive-thru run to find that I had no sweet & sour sauce for my beloved egg rolls. Now, I like my little fried snacks, but I just can't eat them dry. So I headed into the kitchen to fix this faux pas and finagled a little white sugar magic.

I knew it could be done with brown sugar too, and let's face it: sugar in any color may not be so great for you, but this homemade dip is probably way less artery-cloggingly bad for you than the pre-packaged high fructose corn syrup variety that comes with the drive-thru egg rolls.

This is really damn good. I now eschew the fast food sauce for my own personal stash, of which there is ALWAYS a container of in the fridge. And if I happen to run out—the horror!—this whips up in a mere 5 minutes. Cheap, fast AND easy. Who said you couldn't have all three?

There would be egg rolls in this picture, but they didn't survive the photo shoot.

This comes from the About.com Chinese Food section. You can play with the ratio of sugar to vinegar to up the sweet vs sour taste. I actually prefer mine a bit tangier, so I sometimes add a bit more rice vinegar.

Sweet & Sour Sauce
Yields about 1/2 cup

1/3 cup white or rice vinegar (Note: rice vinegar gives better results)
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 4 teaspoons water

Mix the vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and bring to a boil in a small pot. Mix together the cornstarch and water, add to the other ingredients and stir to thicken.

(If desired, you can add 1 green pepper, cut into chunks, and pineapple chunks as desired after adding the cornstarch. For a thicker sauce, increase the cornstarch to 4 teaspoons while keeping the water constant.)