Vietnamese Garlic Chili Sauce- Copycat Huy Fong Sauce

This homemade copycat Huy Fong chili garlic sauce gives you that familiar chunky and spicy garlic taste!  

And my secret to get a similar taste to Huy Fong's sauce is to use a blend of red jalapeno peppers and Fresno chilies.

PS- The bottled stuff has lots of yucky preservatives and even xanthum gum to bind it all together but we'll be using just a little cornstarch to stabilize and thicken the sauce a touch instead.

We’ll also use a little rice vinegar as a preservative and for a little zip to the sauce. Simmering the sauce for 5-10 min will also help for it to keep in your fridge (about a month or more).

Use this for stir fries, soups or to spice up any dish!

If you need any help finding any ingredients for my recipes, you can find links to all my pantry staples / seasonings / kitchen gear as well as photo gear -here-.

INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 pound red chili peppers  (mix of jalapeno, fresno chilies, mix in some sweet red peppers to tame down heat if needed)
6-8 garlic cloves (peeled)
1 tbs sugar

1 1/2 tbs kosher salt

1/2 cup distilled water

Cornstarch Slurry:

1 tsp cornstarch

2 tbs water

2-4  tablespoon rice wine vinegar (to taste, add up to 4 tbs for a little more zing)

Optional Flavor Enhancers:

Dash of fish sauce (*optional)
Sprinkle of Magic Dust aka MSG (*optional, but it really does add a little something special)

PREPARATION

1. Wash, cut off stems and cut peppers in half

2. Transfer to a bowl, and shake/toss bowl to dislodge some of the seeds (this helps reduce a little of that heat and we don't want too many peppper seeds in our sauce)

3. To your blender add peppers, water, garlic, sugar and kosher salt.

4.  Pulse and blend until you have a nice coarse, thick chili paste and transfer half of that mixture out in a collander

5. Blend the rest of the mixture until super smoooth

6. Transfer just the coarse strained peppers (reserve the strained juice and bottle it to use as a tobasco like hot sauce or toss), and the blended pepper sauce to a pan and let simmer. 

7. Once simmered, add your cornstarch slurry, rice vinegar, a dash of fish sauce and some optional magic dust "aka msg".

8.  Let the mixture simmer and stir frequently.  You want the sauce to thicken up some and to evaporate some of that excess liquid/water. About 5-10 min. If you notice the color of your chili sauce getting more muted take it off the heat so it doesn’t lose any more of that vibrancy.

9. Let cool and transfer to a sterilized jar. Store in your fridge and no cross contamination ie no dipping of foods or using used utensils in the sauce (only use clean utensils) and it should keep for about a month or more.