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Sambal oelek is an Indonesian chili paste that brings the heat in its simplest form, using just crushed fresh red chiles, vinegar, and salt. Unlike the weeks of testing and variations needed for homemade Sriracha, this sambal oelek recipe is straightforward and quick to make, delivering an authentic and versatile condiment.
While store-bought versions are often heavily salted and mixed with vinegar, my homemade recipe, made with a perfect balance of fresh red Fresno chilies, bird’s eye chilies, rice vinegar, and a touch of salt, is brighter and fruitier.
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🤷♀️ What is sambal oelek?
"Sambal" is an Indonesian term for a chili pepper-based sauce, which is how sambal dabu dabu, and sambal matah got their names too. "Oelek" (also sometimes spelled olek or ulek) refers to a mortar and pestle, because this is not a smoothly pureed sauce, but rather one with lots of little bits of peppers and seeds in it.
There’s just about nothing I like more to dip my Indonesian vegetable fritters into, add to my stir-fried mie goreng noodles, or toss vegan fried chicken in for a spicy Indonesian.
Jump to:
- 🤷♀️ What is sambal oelek?
- 🥫Is this Huy Fong’s Sambal Oelek recipe?
- 🥰Why you'll adore this sambal oelek recipe
- 🌶️ What is in Sambal Oelek?
- 🤯Variations
- 📖 How to make sambal oelek chili paste
- 💡Serving Ideas
- 👉Top tips to NAIL this sambal oelek recipe
- 🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
- ✌️Recipes with sambal oelek in them:
- Sambal Oelek Recipe (Indonesian Chili Paste)
🥫Is this Huy Fong’s Sambal Oelek recipe?
Huy Fong Foods, the “rooster sauce” brand that became famous for its Sriracha sauce, also produces a popular version of sambal oelek. This company was founded by David Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who started the business in 1980 in Los Angeles. Because of Huy Fong’s production and distribution caused by their popular sriracha, sambal oelek has also become a pantry staple in many households, and it is known for its straightforward and robust flavor. It’s also available in gallon containers for food service, so it ends up on the tables at many restaurants.
Anyway, Huy Fong's sambal oelek is made from fresh red chili peppers, vinegar, and salt, which gives it a tangy, fruity, spicy flavor. It is relatively simple, focusing on the pure, unadulterated flavor of the chilies. My recipe also contains optional garlic, because I like the pungent dimension contributing to the sambal. So if you are trying to emulate Huy Fong’s sauce, just leave the garlic out, and this will be pretty darned close, other than being (in my opinion) a little more flavorful from the balance of chilies used.
See ya later store-bought versions laden with preservatives! This homemade hot sauce promises freshness and flavor that’s unmatched and by golly, it’s pretty fast and simple to make, requiring no fermentation or fancy equipment.
🥰Why you'll adore this sambal oelek recipe
✊Vegan AF & GF: Like all of my vegan Indonesian recipes, this sambal oelek is made without fish sauce, shrimp paste (belacan) or other animal-based ingredients. It also just happens to be one of my completely gluten-free vegan recipes to boot!
🌶️ Custom Balanced Heat: While Huy Fong and other popular brands often make their sambal oelek with red Jalapeños (which can be a pain to get your hands on), my recipe uses a carefully tested blend of Fresno and red bird’s eye chilies. This makes it easier for you to make, yield a sauce that’s brighter, fruitier, and a little hotter, too.
🕒 Quick and Easy: Ready in under 20 minutes and made in one pot, this recipe will not wreck your kitchen or take up your whole weekend.
🛒 Simple Ingredients: With just 5 readily available ingredients, this recipe is accessible to cooks of all skill levels.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all of my vegan recipes, after rigorous testing and refinement, this sambal oelek recipe was vetted by a diverse team of hundreds of testers across the globe, ensuring consistent results no matter where you prepare it.
🌶️ What is in Sambal Oelek?
Fresno Chilies
Originating from Fresno, California, these chilies are mildly spicy with a fruity undertone that I rely on often for making asinan buah Bogor (Javanese-style pickled mango), and Thai tom kha soup. In this sambal oelek recipe, they provide a moderate heat level and vibrant red color. Substitute with red jalapeños for a milder version or habaneros (like I use in my habanero salsa) for a whole heck of a lot more heat.
Red Bird’s Eye Chilies
Gosh, I love these little Thai chilies, which you will find in an embarrassing number of recipes on my site, from sambal goreng kentang, Indonesian stir-fried rice noodles, and tahu goreng. They're one of the things that distinguish this sambal oelek recipe from the pack, making the flavor more well-rounded and intense. If you can’t get them, just substitute them with additional Fresno peppers.
White Vinegar
While regular distilled vinegar gives this pepper paste it’s clean flavor, other options work too. Sambal oelek can be made with lime juice, apple cider vinegar, or rice vinegar, which is what I use in my vegan nacho cheese, chili garlic sauce, and vegan sour cream too.
Garlic
I has a lot of requests (some from the freaks who love my sattvic recipes) to make a recipe for the garlic-free sambal oelek that you can find on the market. So, in this recipe, I made the small amount of garlic optional, because it does indeed add a savory depth and aroma. It's minced or blended to integrate smoothly into the chili paste.
If you are a gosh darned maniac about garlic, another super dope hot sauce you are going to want to mess with next is my Szechuan chili garlic sauce recipe.
Salt
Use sea salt or kosher salt in this recipe, which makes it tasty and helps preserve the chilies and gives the sauce better shelf life.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Sambal Oelek Aioli:
Mix some of this delightful chili paste into some vegan kewpie mayo for an alternative to sriracha mayo. It’s heavenly on tofu banh mi, or for dipping vegan drumsticks.
Lemongrass Sambal Oelek:
Add a tablespoon of lemongrass powder, which is the same stuff I use to make tempe mendoan. It’s an easy way to add the citrusy notes of lemongrass without bothering with the woody and hard-to-cut stalks. You can save those for easy applications like bandrek and sambal goreng tempeh!
📖 How to make sambal oelek chili paste
Nail this on your first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.
Step One
Blend to Chunky Paste:
Remove stems from Fresno chilies and red bird’s eye chilies. In a food processor or mortar and pestle, blend chilies with vinegar, water, and (if you are using it) garlic until mostly broken down, but still chunky, with tons of seeds visible.
Step Two
Sim Simmer, who's got the keys to my bimmer:
Transfer ground chili peppers, including all seeds and liquids, to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and let simmer for 8-10 minutes until all of the bits of chili are softened, and most of the water has been absorbed or evaporated.
Step Three
Season and Stir:
Add salt and stir until dissolved.
Step Four
Cool and Store:
Remove from heat, let cool, and transfer to sterilized jars. Refrigerate for up to three weeks. If you don’t use it up before then when you make vegan drunken noodles or pad see ew!
💡Serving Ideas
If you are already a maniac for chili sauces, but don’t know what the most magical ways to use Sambal oelek are, well mommy, you are in luck. ‘Cause I got all your dinner plans figured out for the rest of your life.
Adding a spoonful of the sauce to dishes such as Filipino Sitaw, or Tofu Sisig, is a superb way to bring a little heat to these savory, but not-spicy-enough dishes.
I love some sambal oelek added to stir-fried noodle dishes like Mi Xao Xi Dau, bami goreng, pad woon sen, or mee rebus, a Malaysian noodle dish in a sweet potato curry broth.
This stuff (of course) also makes a superb condiment to dip Vietnamese vegetarian steamed buns, bánh trang cuon, (Vietnamese spring rolls), rice dumplings, or Thai spring rolls in.
👉Top tips to NAIL this sambal oelek recipe
- You CAN leave it raw: If you want your homemade sambal oelek to be hotter and brighter tasting, you don’t even need to simmer it. But simmering gives it a longer shelf life and softens the bits of pepper, making it much more usable as a condiment.
- Wear Gloves: Always wear gloves when handling hot chilies to avoid burning your skin. The capsaicin in the peppers can cause irritation, so protect yourself from accidental contact.
- Cook in a Well-Ventilated Area: When grinding or cooking the paste, avoid breathing in the fumes as they can be very spicy and cause uncontrollable coughing and irritation to your lungs. Turn on the exhaust fan above your stove if you have one, or cook the paste with windows open and a fan running to circulate the air.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Sambal oelek is known for its spiciness, but you can adjust the heat by varying the type and amount of chilies used. My recipe is a little hotter than store-bought sambal oelek because I use bird’s eye chilies in mine. If you want to mellow it out, substitute those peppers for sweet red bell peppers or red jalapeños.
No, sambal oelek is a chunky chili paste made with fresh chilies, vinegar, and salt, while sriracha is a smooth, garlic-infused sauce, made with milder red chilies that generally undergoes at least a couple days of fermentation to bring the sweetness out of the chilies.
While you can get away with using Fresno chilies in this very good sriracha recipe, the traditional pepper of choice for that sauce is actually red jalapeño.
Sambal oelek is amazing in fried rice dishes like khao pad, nasi goreng, and tom yum fried rice, and it is an alternative to gochujang in vegan kimchi fried rice. I also like to mix a spoonful into Indonesian coconut rice, nasi minyak, and Indonesian turmeric rice.
When properly stored in sterilized jars in the refrigerator, sambal oelek can last for up to three weeks. Make sure to only take the sambal out of the jar with a dry clean metal spoon so as not to introduce bacteria or contaminants into the jar.
Yes, sambal oelek freezes fine for up to three months. But this stuff is so easy to make, that the only reason I could justify not making it fresh is as a pepper harvest preservation technique.
✌️Recipes with sambal oelek in them:
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Sambal Oelek Recipe (Indonesian Chili Paste)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 100 grams Fresno chilies stems removed
- 100 grams red bird’s eye chilies stems removed
- 3 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic optional
- ½ cup water
- 2 teaspoons salt or to taste
Instructions
- Remove the stems from the Fresno chilies and red bird’s eye chilies. Place the chilies in a food processor or mortar and pestle along with the vinegar, garlic cloves (if using), and water. Blend until a chunky paste forms, with visible seeds throughout.
- Transfer the puréed mixture to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes until the pepper pieces have softened and the sauce is thicker.
- Stir in the salt.
- Remove from the heat and let the sauce cool. Transfer the sauce to sterilized jars. Store in the refrigerator, where it will keep for up to three weeks.
Notes
For a hotter and brighter sambal, skip the simmering. While some traditional sambal oelek recipes skip simmering, they don't have as long a shelf life due to the presence of bacteria and enzymes. The cooking also softens the pepper bits, making it a more versatile condiment. 🧤 Glove Up
Wear gloves when handling hot chilies to prevent skin burns. Capsaicin can cause irritation, so protect yourself from accidental contact. 💨 Breathe Easy
Grind or cook the paste in a well-ventilated area to avoid inhaling spicy fumes. Use an exhaust fan or open windows with a fan running to circulate the air.
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Sara Plataan says
Indeed, it took my breath away!
We used it raw, in a lovely vega soto ayam. Delicious!
I reduced the vinegar a bit, as my family is very acid sensitive