Sugar Free Sweet and Sour Sauce Recipe (2024)

This Sugar Free Sweet and Sour Sauce is sweet, sour, savoury and tangy all at the same time. The sauce is thick and glossy and a rich vibrant shade of red and comes together in just 10 minutes.

This Sugar Free Sweet and Sour Sauce is a healthy and versatile alternative to store bought sauces, and maybe even better. If you love saucy dishes check out my Sugar Free Teriyaki Sauce, or my Sugar Free Stir Fry Sauce, Sugar Free Sweet Chilli Sauce and this Sugar Free Smoky BBQ Sauce.

What Makes This Sauce Special?

• It has the perfect balance of sweet and sour with hints of garlic, ginger and chilli for that ultimate umami flavour
• Made with 7 easy and simple ingredients readily available in your supermarket
• Its naturally sweetened so there's no added sugar
• This recipe makes 1 cup of sauce which is the perfect amount for a stir fry
• Use and make it straight away, or make it ahead as part of your weekly meal prep
• You can use this sauce in many different ways (lots of ideas below!)

Check out my Healthy Sweet and Sour Chicken and Sweet and Sour Fish Recipes for more great ideas on how to use this sauce.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

• Tomato Puree/Passata: this is the base of he sauce and using this helps to create a nice consistency to the sauce, such that you don;t need to use any additional thickener like cornflour.
• Pineapple Juice: this gives the sauce its tartness. For convenience I like to use the juice from canned pineapple. Make sure to save the pineapple pieces as you can use them in your dish when you cook it. The sweetness of the pineapple pieces works beautifully.
• Light Soy: this balances out the sauce and is the acidic component. Alternatively you could use dark soy sauce, tamari, rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• Garlic and Ginger: these are for flavour and help make the sauce well rounded. Fresh or bottled both work, and I tend to use bottled for convenience sake.
• Granulated Sweetener: I use granulated monkfruit sweetener which is a natural sweetener that measures like sugar. Granulated stevia will also work. Alternatively you could substitute for honey.
• Chilli Paste: I love a little spice to add complexity to dishes and that is what the chilli paste does, without making hot (I'd call it a mild sauce, even with the chilli). Its optional but recommended. Alternatives are Fresh finely diced chillies, or dried red chilli flakes, but I find the chilli paste the best and it mixes in well with all the other ingredients.

How To Make

1. Add passata, pineapple juice, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, chilli paste and sweetener to a pot over medium to high heat. Stir until the sweetener has dissolved and sauce starts to bubble.
2. Remove from heat as soon as it reaches the desired consistency and set aside to cool.
3. Once cooled, pour into a clean mason jar with lid.

Ways To Use This Sauce

• Sweet and Sour Chicken: Shred a BBQ chicken, and add some chopped greens (eg beans, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, zucchini) and stir fry for 5 minutes until vegetables just begin to soften
• Sweet and Sour Fish: cook you favourite fish, chop it up, add to a pot, pour in the sauce, add the pineapple ad heat through. Serve over rice.
• Sweet and Sour Noodles: add your favourite noodles to a pot, pour over the sweet and sour sauce, pineapple and some baby spinach and stir through.
• Sweet and sour vegetables: chop your favourite veges, mixing different colours and textures and stir fry until just tender. Add sauce and heat through. I highly recommend adding some drained water chestnuts for crunch!
• As a Dipping Sauce: for chicken or fish, baked, breaded, crumbed, or battered. And of course for wedges
• As a Brush On Glaze: on Chicken, or Fish on the grill or BBQ
• As a Recipe base for a casserole or slow cooker dish to intensify the flavour with a hit sweet, sour, savoury and tang!

Expert Tips and FAQ's

More Sugar Free Saucy Recipes

• Sugar Free Stirfry Sauce with Chicken and Veges
• Thai Chicken Meatballs With Peanut Sauce
• Beef Satay Curry Noodles,
• Crispy Chicken with Delicious Lemon Sauce
• 10 Minute Easy Sugar Free Ketchup
• Simple Sugar Free Sweet Chilli Sauce

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