Homemade Sweet & Sour Sauce

Leftover sauce stores perfectly in a Mason Jar

I adapted this from a Better Homes & Garden Cookbook one day when I was making Chinese Vegetables with Tender-Bits. It's a nice gingery sweet and sour sauce that I like really well. You can play around with the ingredients if you like. I've made it when I was out of some of the stuff I needed, but it came out fine. The key ingredients are brown sugar, conrstarch, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. You can experiment with other things like pineapple juice in place of vinegar, cherry juice off a jar of maraschinos in lieu of syrup or other varieties of sweet peppers. It takes just 10 to 20 minutes once you have everything in the pan and really adds a nice touch to Chinese food.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 tsp. cornstarch
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ginger
• 1/2 cup McKay's Chicken Seasoning made into a broth
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup red wine vinegar or pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup finely chopped green sweet bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons chopped pimento
• 2 tablespoons corn syrup or cherry juice
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1.  In a small saucepan over low to medium heat, stir together brown sugar, cornstarch, broth, vinegar, sweet pepper, pimento, corn syrup, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in small saucepan over low to medium heat.
2. Cook and stir until the mixture thickens and starts to bubble.
3. Continue to stir for two minutes and then remove from heat.
4. Leftover sauce can be stored in the fridge in a glass jar for several days. It may gel on you after a few days, but stick the jar in the microwave and add a little water. Heat for a minute and then stir it to return it to its original consistency. If you put it in the fridge while it's warm in a mason jar or small recycle fruit jar, the jar will seal itself and the sauce will stay nice of quite a long time.

© 2015 by Tom King