Kung Pao Sauce – Culinary Seasons

For many people, the thought of Kung Pao brings to mind hot dried chilies added to a chicken or shrimp dish with peanuts. But this sauce doesn’t have any spice added to the sauce. You can add dried chilies or chili flakes to the wok or pan when you are sauteing garlic, this allows the oils in the chiles to be released. Then proceed with assembling the dish. See the Kung Pao Shrimp recipe for more details.

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This sauce is a good base for different dishes such as Kung Pao, Fried Rice, Chow Mein, or other favorite stir fried dishes you usually make. Add garlic, ginger, chili flakes or dried chilies to impart different flavors in the sauce as you cook to develop a different flavor profile.

For a Thai twist, add garlic, ginger, lemongrass, a few dashes fish sauce, a few slices of thai chilies, & scallions to the sauce and use it as a marinade. Be generous with the above ingredients in the marinade, and let sit overnight to get a good marinade on the on steak or chicken. I recommend grilling the meat after the marinade, the sugars in the sauce to caramelize. You can broil to get some char as well. Marinated meat can be sliced across the grain to use in a stir fry.

This recipe makes about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. Serving size is an estimate on how much you are using for your recipe. The sauce can be increased and saved for later use in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. Use for Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Rice, Chow Mein Noodles or other stir fry dishes. Can be thickened with cornstarch when cooking to glaze the final dish.

I recommend using the ingredients as listed, if needing to switch out the substitutions the flavor of the sauce will vary. Example dark soy is sweeter than mushroom soy so sauce may be sweeter than the original recipe. You can omit an ingredient but the flavor will vary as well.