Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce (Nam Chim Kai)

Homemade Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce – make it hot or make it mild … the choice is yours.

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Homemade Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

Graham and I had a day out last week – we hopped on a train and spent the day in Ely, home to Ely Cathedral and Oliver Cromwell’s House.  What a lovely day – Ely is such a laid back, relaxing city.  We wandered through the market then explored Oliver Cromwell’s house which has been converted into a museum and shows what life was like back in the 17th Century.

I just had to share this picture of the fireplace in the kitchen, where all the food was prepared.  Note the bread oven on the left! We’ve come a long way since those days.

After all our wandering around we were starving, so we ended up at a wonderful Thai restaurant called Siam Seasons where we had THE most delicious meal.  (No – I haven’t been incentivised to write that – but if you are ever in Ely it’s worth a visit).  We enjoyed the food so much that I decided to try to replicate some of the dishes myself at home the next day.

This first one that I am sharing is for Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce, a classic dipping sauce found in many kitchen cupboards.

It has a distinctive sweet and hot chilli flavour, with a hint of garlic. Sweet chilli sauce can be used in any dish, in a marinade, or alone as a dipping sauce. It’s also also great for adding to stir-fries and noodle dishes. 

You could also try using it on a pizza instead of the traditional tomato.  I’m thinking sweet chilli base, covered with sliced baby marrow, red bell peppers, and pineapple, topped with shredded chicken.  Yummy!

Ingredients for Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

You can get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions on how to make this recipe on the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

To make Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce you will need the following ingredients:

• ½ cup (150 ml) White Wine Vinegar – you could also use rice vinegar or plain white vinegar. Don’t use malted vinegar.
• ½ cup (150 ml) Brown Sugar – for the sweetness
• ½ cup (150 ml) water
• 3 Tablespoons Fish Sauce
• 2 Tablespoons Rice Wine – substitute with Sherry if you don’t have rice wine
• 3 cloves Garlic (minced) – You can substitute with 1 teaspoon shop-bought bottled minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon Chilli Flakes This will make it quite hot – adjust according to your own taste
• 1 Tablespoon Lime Juice This is optional but I like to add it for the extra flavour it gives.

How to make Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

• Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and allow to simmer until it starts to thicken (20 – 25 minutes)
• When you first add the ingredients, you will notice that the chilli flakes are floating on the top.  As the sauce cooks and thickens, the chilli flakes will become suspended.  That’s the time to take it off the stove.
• As it cools it will thicken some more, and will have a consistency of runny honey.
• To store it, just pour it into a sterilised jar and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
• It will keep in the fridge for at least 2 months.

Sterilise your jars in the microwave

If you sterilise your jars before storing food in them, it will get rid of any micoscopic nasties that might be lurking in there which will cause your food to go off.

• I’ve found the easiest way to sterilise a jar is in the microwave. 
• Wash the jar in hot soapy water, rinse and place it in the microwave whilst still wet. 
• Microwave on full power for 45 seconds.
• Obviously, you can’t do the metal lid in the microwave, so for the lids just wash with the jar and then place in a saucepan of boiling water and allow to boil for a couple of minutes.
• Leave to cool.

A final note on the chilli

You should adjust the chilli to your own taste.

I have used dried chilli flakes in the recipe and I find that one teaspoon is just about the right amount for my taste.    It has a fair amount of heat and lots of flavour, but doesn’t burn too much.

You could substitute the dried chilli flakes with an equivalent amount of fresh finely chopped red chillis if you prefer.

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Additional resources

Don’t forget to check out my handy Cookery Conversion Calculator if you want to convert any of your recipe measurements from grams to cups, ounces, tablespoons or millilitres and vice versa. You can also use the calculator for converting oven temperatures between Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas marks.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read all about it in this post on baking at high altitudes.

Recipe – Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

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