How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (2024)

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How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (1)

by: Bill

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How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (2)

This homemade duck sauce recipe is fresh, preservative-free, and you can customize it to your own tastes. Best of all, it’s made with real ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup, and much more flavor than those little packets!

Chinese duck sauce, hot mustard, a bowl of crispy fried noodles, and a pot of hot tea were always served when guests were seated at the Chinese restaurants I worked at in the 80s, and I worked in many of them. For takeout/takeaway orders, we threw a few packets into the bag.

We have shown you how to cook many of your favorite Chinese restaurant dishes. But what about making your own condiments? In this recipe, we’ll show you exactly how to make duck sauce at home.

How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (3)

What is Duck Sauce?

Duck sauce is a condiment popular in Chinese-American takeout restaurants, often served with fried items such as egg rolls, crab rangoon (recipe in our cookbook!), or wonton strips/fried noodles. It’s usually a thin, jelly-like consistency, orange in color, and has a sweet and sour flavor that contrasts with those savory fried flavors.

There are different variations of duck sauce served in restaurants and sold in jars at grocery stores. Some common ingredients include plums, apricots, peaches, sugar, vinegar, and salt.

But if you ever look closely at the ingredients on a duck sauce packet, you’ll see why you’d want to make your own! Lots of high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, and preservatives.

Why Is It Called Duck Sauce?

There are different stories about the name “duck sauce.”

Some say that the sauce was served with deep fried pressed duck, also known as wor shu opp in Cantonese.

The name may also have been derived from a traditional Chinese sour plum duck dish (one of my all-time favorite childhood dishes), as it also has a sour plum flavor.

Whatever the origin, the name stuck, and it became the go-to sauce to serve with fried food.

Is It the Same as Plum Sauce?

Chinese restaurants buy ready-made duck sauce in 5 gallon buckets. I remember the familiar red letters and logo on the buckets of Wah Yoan Duck Sauce in all the Chinese restaurants I worked in. They had a lock on the duck sauce market!

Wah Yoan doesn’t have a direct-to-consumer product or brand that I know of, but plum sauce brands like Koon Chunmake a product that’s quite similar.

That said, I think it’s best to make your own duck sauce at home!

What Do People Eat with Duck Sauce?

Duck sauce is served on the side with fried and barbecued dishes like:

  • Chinese Takeout Egg Rolls
  • Cream Cheese Wontons
  • Shrimp Toast
  • Fried Chicken Wings
  • Chinese BBQ Spareribs

But I have seen people put dollops of duck sauce and hot mustard onto their pork fried rice and even on their shrimp with lobster sauce!

Try this duck sauce recipe, and you’ll never look at those plastic packets the same way again!

Duck Sauce: Recipe Instructions

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and hot water until the sugar is dissolved. Add the apricot preserves.

Remove pit from the pickled plum and add to the bowl. The plum is very soft and should fall apart. Then add ½ teaspoon liquid from the pickled plum jar, soy sauce and rice vinegar.

Mix everything together with a fork until the duck sauce is well-combined. Let the sauce sit for 5 minutes and mix again.

How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (4)

This salted pickled plum is a secret key ingredient that most recipes you see on the internet miss! It makes a huge difference in taste and and gives our duck sauce recipe its authentic flavor.

Feel free to adjust this duck sauce recipe to your own tastes.

Add more sugar or apricot preserves if you like the sauce sweeter. Add more rice vinegar if you like your sauce slightly tart. Thin it out further with a little bit of hot water if you’d like a thinner consistency!

How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (6)
How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (7)

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4.92 from 24 votes

How to Make Duck Sauce

Duck Sauce is a beloved condiment in American Chinese takeout restaurants. Our recipe shows you how to make Chinese duck sauce at home, with real ingredients and real flavor.

by: Bill

Course:Condiments

Cuisine:Chinese

How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (8)

serves: 4

Prep: 5 minutes minutes

Total: 5 minutes minutes

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Ingredients

  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1 ½ tablespoons hot water
  • 3 tablespoons apricot preserves
  • 1 salted pickled plum
  • ½ teaspoon liquid from salted pickled plum jar
  • 1/8 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon rice vinegar

Instructions

  • In a small bowl, mix the sugar and hot water until the sugar is dissolved. Add the apricot preserves.

  • Remove pit from the pickled plum and add to the bowl. The plum is very soft and should fall apart. Then add ½ teaspoon liquid from the pickled plum jar, soy sauce and rice vinegar.

  • Mix everything together with a fork until the duck sauce is well-combined. Let the sauce sit for 5 minutes and mix again.

Tips & Notes:

Feel free to adjust this duck sauce recipe to your own tastes. You can add more sugar or apricot preserves if you like the sauce sweeter. Add more rice vinegar if you like your sauce slightly tart. You can also thin it out further with a little bit of hot water if you’d like a thinner consistency.

This duck sauce should last in the fridge for several months.

nutrition facts

Calories: 53kcal (3%) Carbohydrates: 14g (5%) Protein: 1g (2%) Fat: 1g (2%) Saturated Fat: 1g (5%) Sodium: 42mg (2%) Potassium: 24mg (1%) Sugar: 9g (10%) Vitamin A: 30IU (1%) Vitamin C: 1.3mg (2%) Calcium: 3mg Iron: 0.1mg (1%)

nutritional info disclaimer

TheWoksofLife.com is written and produced for informational purposes only. While we do our best to provide nutritional information as a general guideline to our readers, we are not certified nutritionists, and the values provided should be considered estimates. Factors such as brands purchased, natural variations in fresh ingredients, etc. will change the nutritional information in any recipe. Various online calculators also provide different results, depending on their sources. To obtain accurate nutritional information for a recipe, use your preferred nutrition calculator to determine nutritional information with the actual ingredients and quantities used.

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How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (13)

About Bill

Bill is the dad of The Woks of Life family. He grew up in upstate New York, working through high school and college in restaurants with his father, a chef. Rose from modest beginnings as a Burger King sandwich assembler to Holiday Inn busboy and line cook, to cooking at the family's Chinese restaurant, while also learning the finer points of Cantonese cooking from his immigrant parents. Specializes in all things traditional Cantonese and American Chinese takeout.

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How to Make Duck Sauce: Easy 5 Minute Recipe - The Woks of Life (2024)

FAQs

What is homemade duck sauce made of? ›

It is made of plums, apricots, pineapples or peaches added to sugar, vinegar, ginger and chili peppers. It is used in more traditional Chinese cuisine in the form of plum sauce.

What the heck is duck sauce? ›

Duck sauce is a popular condiment most associated and used with Americanized Chinese cooking. It is often offered in a little packet alongside the soy sauce and spicy mustard. It often has an orangey brown color. It's much sweeter than soy sauce or spicy mustard, but with a noticeable tang.

How long is duck sauce? ›

Duck sauce is the best right after opening a jar, but it will last for a long period of time if refrigerated after opening. Once opened, a jar of duck sauce will keep for 1 year in the refrigerator. If you like to hang on to packets of takeout sauce, you can keep duck sauce for up to 1 year in a kitchen drawer.

What to do with all this duck sauce? ›

You could use your leftover duck sauce packets to whip up a tangy steak marinade with lemon juice, garlic, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Alternatively, extra firm tofu, seitan, or tempeh would all absorb that flavorful marinade; soak it, cube it, and toss it in a plant-based stir fry.

What sauce is similar to duck sauce? ›

Also called plum sauce, it got its name when restaurants in the United States started serving it with Peking Duck, which is actually traditionally served with a similar sauce, hoisin (which also has a confusing name since hoisin means “seafood,” although it's not traditionally served with that).

What is the base of duck sauce? ›

This homemade duck sauce is made with chopped plums, apple juice, apricot preserves, soy sauce, and a pinch of garlic and mustard.

Is duck sauce healthy? ›

Apart from being a sider for the tasty snacks, there are a lot of health benefits that it has to offer. If we study closely, we will understand that duck sauce has some amount of vitamins (precisely vitamin A and vitamin E) and minerals. It also contains some proportion of magnesium and calcium.

Is duck sauce Chinese or Japanese? ›

Like many items on Chinese takeout menus in the States, duck sauce is an American invention, though whose origin is pretty hazy. There is no one specific recorded inventor or restaurant or origin. However, the apricot, which is a stone fruit, is a clue to the sauce's ties back to traditional Chinese cooking.

Can you eat duck 3 days out of date? ›

“Exp. (or Expires)” – this is a true expiration date. The food is not safe to eat and must be thrown away. Leave meat, poultry and seafood in the store packaging before using.

What does duck sauce mean in Chinese? ›

“Duck sauce” is really plum sauce. It is made with plums and is sweet with a tangy flavor. In Chinese, this sauce is named “sour plum sauce”.

What is orange duck sauce made of? ›

Make sauce: In a small saucepan, combine orange juice, chicken broth, and orange marmalade. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Can you eat leftover duck? ›

When you roast a Duck, Goose, Turkey or Chicken, the leftover Meat can be used to make other meals. Most people tend to make Salads or Sandwiches but if you combine the Meat with lots of Veggies and Pulses then you can create a wholesome and hearty main course.

What pairs well with duck sauce? ›

The Woks of Life explains that duck sauce can be used to spice up fried appetizers, like egg rolls, cream cheese wontons, shrimp toast, or fried chicken wings. It also goes well with Chinese-style barbecued spare ribs and the roast duck it's named after.

What's the difference between duck sauce and hoisin sauce? ›

They are two different kinds of sauces. Hoisin contains soya sauce, while duck sauce includes a mix of fruits. However, they both taste sweet, and you can use them to substitute for each other. Hoisin sauce is a bit saltier than duck sauce but equally delicious.

What's the difference between duck sauce and sweet and sour? ›

If you're from the Midwest or Eastern seaboard of the United States, duck sauce is likely an orange jelly-like substance—similar to sweet-and-sour sauce but with a fruitier flavor—that comes in packets with your Chinese takeout. It's typically used for dipping crispy noodles, egg rolls, and other fried foods.

Is duck sauce an American thing? ›

Like many items on Chinese takeout menus in the States, duck sauce is an American invention, though whose origin is pretty hazy. There is no one specific recorded inventor or restaurant or origin.

Is plum sauce and duck sauce the same thing? ›

Plum Sauce, sometimes called "Duck Sauce," is a sweet and tangy condiment with the lively flavors of plums and ginger. It's often served with fried wontons and other appetizers.

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