Try this homemade hoisin sauce once and you will never want to use a store bought one again. This is a flexible recipe that you can customize based on the ingredients you have on hand.
Why would you ever want to make hoisin sauce at home when you can easily get it from an online store or any Asian market? The answer is that it tastes a hundred times better. The end.
Hoisin sauce is very popular in southern Chinese cooking. As a northerner myself, I seldom use it. If I need to enhance the flavor of a dish with a sauce shortcut (like in this recipe), I’ll use oyster sauce most of the time. However, hoisin sauce does play an important part in making marinades and glazes, such as that for Chinese BBQ.
It never occurred to me that someone might want to make hoisin sauce at home, until a reader mentioned to me that it could be pretty expensive to purchase, depending on where you are. Plus, it doesn’t make sense to buy a big bottle of it when you just need a tablespoon for a special recipe.
When I tried to make a small batch of hoisin sauce last week, I was even more convinced of how great an idea it was. The homemade version uses better quality ingredients, such as honey, natural peanut butter, and fresh garlic. It has a superior flavor compared to the bottled one. I wouldn’t say the homemade version tastes 100% identical to a supermarket-bought hoisin sauce, but it adds a great subtle flavor to the dishes I used it in and I was very satisfied with the taste.
After some research, I found that the only problem with making this sauce is that you need to use another sauce as an ingredient. Most of the recipes online call for hot sauce, sriracha, or miso. Its sounds strange. But the problem is that real hoisin sauce gets its flavor from fermented beans, and it’s quite difficult to create this subtle hint from most of the basic spices found in the average pantry.
In the end, I decided to use the hoisin sauce recipe from Food.com as a base. I divided the base into four parts and experimented with miso, doubanjiang (Chinese spicy fermented bean paste), Thai chili sauce, and gochujang (Korean spicy fermented chili paste) to complete the various trials. In the end, miso paste and doubanjiang created the taste most similar to hoisin sauce. However, all of them yielded satisfying results.
In this recipe, I listed all four options. Depending on what do you have in your pantry, you can easily make a great tasting hoisin sauce in 5 minutes!
More recipes to use your hoisin sauce
- Chinese BBQ Char Siu
- Hoisin Roasted Asparagus
- Chicken Lettuce Wrap
- Slow Cooker Spare Ribs in Plum Sauce
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
Homemade Hoisin Sauce
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup light soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 clove garlic , grated
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon miso paste (OR 1/2 teaspoon spicy fermented bean paste, OR 1/2 teaspoon gochujang + 1/4 teaspoon five spice powder, OR 1 teaspoon Thai chili sauce + 1/4 teaspoon five spice powder)
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
- Store hoisin sauce in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a month.
Hi Maggie.
I am going to try making this this week. I am not able to have soy, so I use Coconut Aminos when ever soy is used. I have never had hoisin before, so I have nothing to go by. ?
I think the coconut aminos will work just fine. Happy cooking Shannon and hope you like the outcome of the recipe 🙂
Hi Maggie, thank you for your recipes. I love hoisin sauce and the best I’ve had is at Charlie Hong Kong In Santa Cruz, Ca. They make their own so I was very happy to see your site with a variety of ingredients to try.
I’m glad to hear you find this post helpful! Yes, homemade hoisin sauce is the best. And I believe there are many possibilities to make a delicious sauce!
Hi Maggie. One day I was making Chinese ribs and chcken satay for a football party wanted to get stuff in the marinades the night before. We only had a smidge of hoisin sauce , but it was late and snowing so I quickly Googled homemade but knew full well I wouldn’t have everything even if a recipe did show. Yours came right up and it was fantastic, had everything on hand and within a few min we had amazing sauce that we now use as a marinade, dipping sauce for fresh spring rolls, dumplings, won tons….just adjusting fresh herbs to match the dish. WONDERFUL.
Hi Dave, I’m so happy to hear that the sauce works for you, in so many ways! It’s a very versatile sauce isn’t it? I’ve never used it for wonton dippings sauce yet, but now I can’t wait to try out!
Thanks for taking time to leave a comment. Happy cooking and hope you have a great week ahead 🙂
What a tasty sauce. I made the version with “1 teaspoon Thai chili sauce + 1/4 teaspoon five spice powder” and although it tastes different than my store bought LEE KUM KEE it definitely worked well on my pork noodle soup. I stored this Hoisin Sauce in my old empty Hoisin bottle. Comparing the store bought ingredients I notice that Maggie’s list of ingredients DOES NOT include: “modified corn starch, wheat flour, caramel color, acetic acid, FD&C red food color No. 40, nor potassium sorbate.” Hmmm …. could this be why the Asian diet with it’s fresh ingredients is acclaimed to be healthier then so many alternatives ….?
Can’t wait to run out so I can make another version … maybe as a dipping sauce for dim sum.
Hi Rob, I’m glad to hear you like the sauce! Yes the homemade sauce tastes different from the store bought sauce but it works great in many recipes as a hoisin sauce alternative. If you use miso paste or the fermented bean paste, the taste will be a bit closer.
I definitely agree with you that homemade sauces will make your meals healthier 🙂 The other thing is, Chinese sauces go very well with vegetables. While I was living with my parents, our dinner table for three usually have two to three big plates of vegetables and one meat dish. Eating vegetables was never a painful thing because they are so delicious 🙂
Hi Maggie
I never usually post on things like this, but the recipe was so mad and tastes so great! I’m going to use it in a char siu style marinade for some pork ribs (nom)
Thanks again!
Glad the recipe worked for you Roston, and thanks for taking time to leave a comment!
Hope your char siu marinade will turn out great as well. Happy cooking 🙂
hello i love the recipe it’s great. can you tell me how long the home made hoisin sauce will keep? and do you think i can freeze it? many thanks again
Hi Amita, I usually store the sauce in the fridge and it stays good for at least a month. And yes you can definitely freeze it if you want to keep it for a longer period of time.
Thank you. This is a very informative, well written and user-friendly site. I’m going to make this Hoisin sauce tonight!
Thanks for your kind words Patrick! Happy cooking and let me know how the sauce turns out 🙂
Thanks so much, I used this for fresh spring rolls as well as for pad thai. My whole family loved it, and there are six of us, finding something everyone likes is hard. Thanks again!
Hi Cammele, I’m so glad to hear you like this sauce! It’s indeed a tough job to please six eaters who have different taste and I’m happy that the sauce is a crowd pleaser 🙂
Hope you and your family have an awesome week ahead!
Thank you Maggie, amazing flavors. I used option #4 with sweet chili sauce and the 5 spice. It is impossible to find gluten free hoisin or oyster sauce. I use San-J Tamari, although salty is works. The hoisin worked perfectly with my Asian pork meatball sauce.
Hi Cathey, I’m glad to hear the recipe worked out for you! I’ve never seen a gluten free oyster sauce. But recently I just posted a vegetarian oyster sauce that is also gluten-free. Here is the link if you’re interested: https://omnivorescookbook.com/homemade-vegetarian-oyster-sauce/
Happy cooking and have a great week ahead 🙂
Thanks, now I can cook a variety of dishes using your hoisin sauce recipe.
You’re the most welcome Ruel! I’m glad to hear the recipe is helpful. Happy cooking 🙂
Got into a recipe and discovered that someone had put an empty hoisin bottle back in the fridge. What?! 🙂 Since we’re a gluten-free family and not fans of sugar and salt I was looking for a healthy recipe and found yours. Wow. Amazing. I did the variation with Thai chilli sauce and 5-spice powder. No MSG. No cornstarch. No gluten. SO much flavour. Heaven. Thanks for sharing!
Whoops, thought this original post had crashed and burned! Sorry to repeat myself! 🙂
Where did I go wrong? This is SALTY beyond belief! Perhaps 1/3 the recommended light soya sauce and twice/tripple the honey?
It wasn’t salty when I tasted mine, but when I cooked with it, YIKES! I felt like was eating shrimp that died in the dead sea! This is the second recipe I have tried and both have been overly salty.
Where did you find the bowl that the hoisin sauce is in? The clear glass one?? It reminds me of a honey jar.
Hi Jill, I’m pretty sure I got these prep bowls in Ikea. You can find similar ones in other home improvement stores as well.
I’m from Croatia, Eastern Europe and I Like Chinese cuisine.
This Hoisin sauce is really excellent, I put it in the chicken risotto and it was delicious. Thank you.
Hi Sanja, I’m glad to hear you like the recipe! Wow, I’ve never thought about adding this sauce into a risotto! What a fun and delicious idea 🙂
I’d love to try it out sometime, maybe with some asparagus.
Is it ok to add cashew or almond butter in place of peanut? I have salted black beans as well as dried and miso but I’m allergic to peanuts which we both know are a legume.
Hi Stephanie, I think you can use almond butter to replace the peanut butter. The peanut butter is used here to add texture and nuttiness. You can probably get a great result from other nut butter too.
Can you suggest something in place of a nut butter? I’m so delighted to have come across your recipes as I love chinese food and I’m allergic to gluten, but I am also allergic to nuts/peanuts. What could you suggest in place of the peanut butter in this? Thanks!
Rosie, I look forward to trying 5-Seed Butter for this, which is the closest I’ve found to peanut butter.
Hi,
Used this when I was trying a Mongolian lamb curry recipe (from elsewhere) and found I needed hoisin sauce.
I replaced the rice vinegar with red-wine vinegar that I had. I also just used five spice powder as the last ingredient (instead of the miso paste). I added the chilli as part of the main curry recipe instead.
Turned out very well in the end .
regards,
Rune
Hi Maggie
Thank you for sharing your hoisin recipes. I just came back from my first ever trip to China, business trip to Shanghai, and I wanted to add savoury noodle bowls to my cooking repertoire. I really like te idea of having it all in on bowl and the mix of broth, hoisin sauce and crispy vegetables. I’ll try the recipe using gochujang since I have some from my “Corean” cooking phase last year ?. I’ll let you know the out come.
Hi Madelene, that sounds like a good plan! Seems like you enjoyed the trip and the food in China 🙂
Noodle bowl is such a great thing for dinner. I always make extra sauce and save the leftover for later so I can prepare dinner so fast.
Happy cooking and can’t wait to hear what you cooked!
So good
Thank you Maggie!
My first time trying to cool Asian fare properly. I had to improvise a little as I didnt have all the ingredients, but it paid off! Thank you for the inspiration.
Be happy 😉
Just made this with the gojuchang and five spice powder. Absolutely clean and delicious. Really excited to try your other recipes.
We’re happy to hear that, Cassius! Let us know how the other recipes go, and if you have any requests 🙂