Stir Fry Sauce

This Homemade Stir Fry Sauce recipe is a savoury sauce to use with all your favourite stir fry recipes. It’s perfect for meal prep, it’s budget friendly, and it’s free of preservatives!

 

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

If you’ve been a reader of The Busy Baker for any length of time you’ll already know that we LOVE a good easy meal prep recipe that makes dinner time a breeze. We also love a good stir fry in The Busy Baker house, and our chicken stir fry recipe makes it on to our family’s meal plan at least once a month, sometimes twice! Whenever stir fry is on the menu, whether it’s with chicken or shrimp, this stir fry sauce is our go to meal prep recipe for making dinner even easier!

It’s the perfect sauce that goes with just about any stir fry. It’s easy to prep ahead of time and store in the fridge until you’re ready to use it, you can make it for a fraction of the cost of a store-bough stir fry sauce, and it’s easy to throw together in just a few minutes! Trust us, it’s going to become one of your favourite meal prep recipes, too!

Stir fry sauce is a savoury, flavourful sauce used to coat stir fry vegetables, noodles, and proteins like chicken, beef, tofu, or shrimp. It’s the magic ingredient in every stir fry that ties everything together and gives it a glossy, saucy finish and intense flavour you’d expect from your favourite stir fry. A good stir fry sauce is all about balancing 4 flavour profiles. Here’s how those four flavours come together to create the perfect, well-rounded stir fry sauce:

1. Salty
   The salty element forms the backbone of your sauce. It adds depth and savoury goodness that enhances the other flavours. Soy sauce is the most common salty base, but tamari or coconut aminos are great alternatives for gluten-free or lower-sodium versions of this stir fry sauce.
2. Sweet
   A touch of sweetness balances the salt and cuts through any bitterness from the veggies. You can use brown sugar, honey, or even maple syrup to give your sauce just the right amount of warmth and richness. The sweet flavour helps round out the sauce, giving it that familiar flavour you’ll find in classic stir fries.
3. Sour (or Acidic)
   The sour element lifts the sauce and adds brightness. Rice vinegar or rice wine vinegar is typically used here—it’s light, mild, and slightly sweet, perfect for balancing the bolder flavours of the fresh veggies and the saltiness. This acidic flavour brings freshness to the dish, keeping the sauce from feeling heavy and overly sweet.
4. Umami
   Umami is that deep, savoury flavour that gives stir fry sauces that rich flavour. Ingredients like hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, miso paste, fish sauce, or a splash of sesame oil help to deliver this umami flavour. Think of umami as the flavour that makes your sauce taste like it came from a restaurant, or the flavour that keeps you coming back for more!

A note about texture: A good stir fry sauce isn’t just about flavour—it’s also about texture! Most sauces are thickened with a cornstarch slurry (just a little bit of cornstarch mixed with water that thickens the sauce as it heats up in the pan) so they cling to every bite of veggie, noodle, and protein in the pan. And that glossy finish you always see on a good stir fry sauce? It’s the cornstarch slurry doing its job and locking in all that flavour.

This homemade stir fry sauce recipe is simple, quick, and customizable—and it gives you all the bold, takeout-style flavours without any additives or preservatives you’ll find in store-bought conventional sauces. Make a batch ahead of time and keep it in the fridge so you’re always just a few minutes away from a fresh, homemade stir fry dinner on a busy weeknight!

There are SO many reasons why we LOVE this stir fry sauce recipe! Here are just a few:

1. It’s ridiculously EASY to make: Make it with just a jar, a lid, and some basic pantry staples you likely already have on hand! It comes together in minutes with no special equipment required!
2. It’s CUSTOMIZABLE: Do you like it sweeter or spicier? Feel free to adjust the flavours in the sauce any way you like.
3. It’s more DELICIOUS than store-bought stir fry sauce: Fresh aromatics and no preservatives make EVERYTHING taste better!
4. It’s MEAL PREP FRIENDLY: It keeps super well in the fridge all week, so you can throw together a stir fry whenever you need to! It also freezes well for future meals!
5. It’s BUDGET FRIENDLY: There’s nothing like throwing together a sauce for a few pennies rather than buying an expensive store-bought one that’s full of nasty ingredients. Once you have a few basic pantry staples like soy sauce and rice vinegar, making your own is so cheap!

If you want to use this stir fry sauce as a base for a delicious easy meal, here’s how we recommend building a tasty stir fry the whole family will love!

1. Pick a protein: Chicken breasts or thighs, beef cut in thin strips, pork tenderloin, salmon, shrimp, or tofu make a great protein base for any stir fry.
2. Add aromatic ingredients: Ingredients like lemongrass, ginger, garlic, yellow onion, red onion, or spring onions add a ton of flavour.
3. Add green veggies: Broccoli, snow peas, green beans, zucchini, green bell peppers, and green beans are all delicious options.
4. Add some more colour: Thinly sliced carrots, red or yellow bell pepper, or mushrooms add a pop of colour and some contrast.
5. Add some spice: Optional ingredients are sliced chili pepper or red pepper flakes, that add just a bit of heat. Leave this step out if you’re not into spicy food or if you’re serving the stir fry to children.
6. Serve with some noodles or rice: Prepare a bit of rice or even rice noodles on the side and serve the stir fry over the rice or noodles.

Here are our BEST tips and tricks for making your homemade stir fry sauce the best it can be!

Fresh aromatic ingredients are the key to this amazing sauce. They add more flavourful than dried garlic or ginger powder, and they make this sauce a flavour bomb.

A small dash of sriracha or other hot sauce will give this sauce a touch of heat and another level of flavour. Add more if you enjoy spicy food or leave it out if you don’t like spice.

Add a few drops of fish sauce and a splash of lime juice at the end for even more flavour. This particular combination works best for shrimp stir fry.

Keep in mind that the sauce will thicken a little while it cools but you can adjust the thickness by adding an extra splash of water or stock.

Start by sautéing the protein and veggies in a large skillet over medium-high heat in sesame seed oil until they’re crisp-tender. This will add another layer of flavour to your dish. Add the sauce near the end, after the other ingredients have been stir fried.

Here are some issues you might encounter when making and using this stir fry sauce, and how we recommend fixing and preventing them:

Keep in mind that soy sauce is salty so don’t go heavy on the salt on the other ingredients in your stir fry. Alternatively, you could use low sodium soy sauce or balance your stir fry sauce by adding some more brown sugar, honey, or agave and an extra splash of rice vinegar.

If you realize you’d like a thinner stir fry sauce as you’re cooking it, add some extra stock or water to get to the desired consistency.

Add a dash more hoisin, sriracha, or a splash of rice vinegar to brighten it up. You can also add more fresh ginger or garlic to add more flavour to the sauce.

Feel free to add more sriracha and even chili flakes, if you wish.

Here’s everything you’ll need to have on hand in your kitchen to make this stir fry sauce (paid links):

• Cutting Board
• large knife
• Garlic Press
• Mason Jars with lids
• measuring cups and spoons
• Microplane Zester

Here’s a list of all the ingredients you’ll need to make this homemade stir fry sauce (paid links):

For the stir fry sauce base:

• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons ginger or 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

When you’re ready to use:

• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 8 tablespoons water

We hope you love this easy stir fry sauce recipe as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what are your favourite stir fry ingredients? We’d love to know!

• Chicken Stir Fry
• Pineapple Chicken Rice Bowls
• Poke Bowl
• Easy Chicken Shawarma
• Easy Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowls
• Breakfast Burrito Bowls
• Easy Korean Beef Rice Bowls
• Power Bowl
• Sheet Pan Steak Fajitas
• Air Fryer Chicken Fajitas