Chinese Brown Sauce (All-Purpose Stir Fry Sauce)

5 from 3 votes

Chinese Brown Sauce (All-Purpose Stir Fry Sauce)

This Chinese Brown Sauce recipe is your secret weapon for recreating your favorite Chinese takeout dishes right at home. With its rich, savory, and slightly sweet flavor, it's the perfect base for stir-fries like beef and broccoli or chicken and broccoli, and it's incredibly easy to make!

Prep Time5

Cook Time10

Total Time15

Course: Sauce

Cuisine: Chinese

Servings: cup

Calories: 160kcal

Author: Joyce Lee

Ingredients

2 tablespoons soy sauce (low sodium)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2½ tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Shaoxing cooking wine
1 clove garlic (smashed or grated)
1 cup water
½ teaspoon sesame oil (optional)

Instructions

Preparation

Peel the 1 clove garlic and smash it with the side of the knife. We want to keep this whole and intact so we can easily remove it and discard it before we use it. Alternatively, if you like it more garlicky, and you don't mind the garlic bits in the sauce, you can also finely mince it or grate it as well.
Mix 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 2 tablespoons soy sauce first, until the cornstarch has fully dissolved.
Then, add 2½ tablespoons oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon Shaoxing cooking wine, and 1 teaspoon sugar in the bowl and mix well.
Once everything is well mixed, add in 1 cup water and mix everything together.

Cooking the Chinese Brown Sauce

Add a small pot over the stovetop and add in the sauce mixture and garlic clove. Set the stove to medium-low heat and keep stirring.
**Make sure you are adding the sauce into a cold pot, we want to slowly bring it up to a simmer so that the garlic can infuse into the sauce before it thickens.
Bring the sauce to a simmer while stirring continuously. You will know it's done once the sauce boils vigorously and thickens into a see-through dark brown sauce.
Finally, reduce the heat to low and let your sauce simmer for about 1 minute.
Turn off the heat. Mix in ½ teaspoon sesame oil (optional). Do a taste test, if you like more sesame flavor, add ½ teaspoon more. Discard the whole garlic clove.
Your Chinese brown sauce is ready to use!
This sauce is quite strong, so I like to use about ¼ cup of sauce for my stir fries or noodles. This is dependent on how much you're stir-frying so always do a taste test after ¼ cup, if you need more flavor, you can add more, a few tablespoons at a time until the flavor is right for you. This recipe makes about 1 cup of sauce.

Notes

Mix the Cornstarch with the Soy Sauce First: To streamline the process, I like to mix the cornstarch directly into the sauce. Cornstarch mixes best with a small amount of liquid, so mix it with the soy sauce first until it is fully dissolved, before you add the rest of the ingredients.
Don't Skip the Cornstarch: Cornstarch is essential in this recipe as it thickens the sauce. Re-stir it right before you add it to the pot to avoid any lumps in your sauce. Alternatively, you can also use potato starch as well, which will create a silkier sauce but it won't be as thick.
Add the Sauce Into The Pan When the Pot is Cold: Since we pre-mix the starch into the sauce, you want to slowly bring up the sauce to a simmer so that we have time for the garlic clove to infuse into the sauce. Make sure you add the sauce into a cold pot and slowly raise it up the the simmer temperature to thicken. It's important that you keep stirring so it doesn't clump as well.
Add Sesame Oil After Heat is Turned Off: While not necessary, adding a dash of sesame oil can enhance the flavors of your Chinese brown sauce. However, be careful not to add too much as it can overpower the other ingredients. You also want to add it in after you turned off the heat for the best flavor so that the direct heat doesn't break down the oil.
How Much to Use: This sauce is quite strong, so I like to use about ¼ cup of sauce for my stir fries or noodles. This is dependent on how much you're stir-frying so always do a taste test after ¼ cup, if you need more flavor, you can add more, a few tablespoons at a time until the flavor is right for you.
Don't worry if you see the sauce congeal into a jelly once it has cooled. That is normal. Once you add it to a hot pan, it will melt and become a sauce again. That being said, the longer you keep it, the less thickening power it will have as well. If you find the sauce runnier than when you first made it, use a bit of cornstarch slurry to thicken it again.

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