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.
This is great. I use hoisin sauce in my Asian cooking so knowing how to make my own is a huge plus. Great recipe!
Used this in a Kung pao recipe and it was very tasty! Doesn’t taste like hoisin, but I think it hits the right notes, and tasty nonetheless. I used agave instead of honey to make it vegan, but might try molasses next time. I may try tahini instead of peanut butter next time, since I usually only have chunky on hand.
Does this need to be cooked before using? It isn’t mentioned, except in the preparation time where it states Cook Time : 5 hr 58 min?
Thank you
Hi Valerie, you don’t’ need to cook the sauce. I just saw the recipe card does show the cook time, that’s super weird! It’s probably a system glitch when I switched recipe card. Just updated the recipe. Thanks for letting me know!
Used this recipe to make Hoisin sauce with a soy substitute – excellent! Thank you!
Thanks for this Maggie. I haven’t tried it yet but I will be doing. I have coeliacs disease and I’ve been hunting for some gluten free hoisin sauce and it’s a bit thin on the ground, looks like I have my answer right here.
Any suggestions for a PB replacement? My son is allergic.
Hi Goldie, you can use Chinese sesame paste to replace the peanut butter: http://omnivorescookbook.com/chinese-sesame-paste
When you purchase the sesame paste, make sure the ingredient only uses sesame seeds. Some of the sesame paste blend peanut in it.
I am a professionally trained chef…but still could use some outside help! I need substitutions for soy & anything containing seafood & shellfish due to severe allergies. This hoisin sauce is such a big help! I usually sub red wine for soy sauce & then boil it out so the alcohol is gone. Due to cancer treatments no alcohol can be consumed. With so many restrictions I need all the help I can get! I need substitutions for: Seafood (all), Shellfish, Alcohol & Soy. I cook a lot for a friend who is deathly allergic to soy & gluten. Then there is me…allergic to seafood, shellfish & no alcohol or grapefruit due to cancer treatments. So no soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, etc. Any help in this area is greatly appreciated!
I think the best soy-free gluten-free substitution for soy sauce is coconut amino, which has a very close taste to soy sauce.
As for shellfish/seafood, I think you need to find a safe way to add umami. So maybe try dried mushrooms, seaweed (if you can eat seaweed), and nutritional yeast.
I have a vegetarian oyster sauce using mushrooms: https://omnivorescookbook.com/homemade-vegetarian-oyster-sauce/ (you do need to replace the soy sauce in it)
My husband has a vegan blog that can be a good resource. For example:
Vegan dashi: https://gastroplant.com/vegan-dashi/
Vegan tonkotsu broth: https://gastroplant.com/vegan-tonkotsu-ramen-broth/
I didn’t have hoisin sauce (I am a celiac & not many are gf) around for a recipe, so looked around and found yours. I put it in a food processor, otherwise, w/ the options …had some miso and used that. Turned out fantastic 🙂 Thanks!
can the homemade hoisin sauce be frozen in the ice cube trays for longer storage? thank you
Hi Shelly, yes, you can freeze the hoisin sauce.
Everything looks so delicious,and fairly easy, cannot wait to get started. I will let you know how it turns out!
Superb! I’ve been looking for an easy homemade hoisin sauce recipe with an outstanding flavor profile. This is it! Easy and delicious! I would make it again. Thank you!
I just made this, and it tastes better than the real thing because it doesn’t have all that unnecessary additives. This recipe is a definite winner 😊
It’s easy and incredibly tasty
This worked great in a recipe I was using that needed hoisin sauce! Thanks!
Is the peanut butter supposed to be crunchy or smooth? I make my own using a champion juicer, and it comes up crunchy (which is my preference with peanut butter). Would crunchy (not mega, but somewhat) work in this recipe, or should I use a smooth nut butter?
Hi Shelly, I usually use unsweetened smooth peanut butter. I think the chunky type would work as well as long as it’s not sweetened. You might need to slightly adjust the texture by slightly adding more peanut butter (or maybe reduce soy sauce) to get the consistency you prefer, but it should taste good!
Hi Maggie,
Thanks very much for this recipe. We’ve never cared for commercial hoisin sauce, as we find them consistently too sweet. This is a great alternative. I used tamari in place of the soy sauce because my wife has a gluten allergy. Also, I added 2 teaspoons of molasses to the recipe for even greater depth of flavor. A pork loin stir fry turned out great!
Thanks so much for this recipe! It tastes awesome! I’m vegan with a soy allergy and a gluten sensitivity, and I really really miss Asian food. I modified this recipe to suit my needs – coconut aminos for soy sauce, sugar for honey, and chickpea miso. I used it in a Thai basil eggplant recipe and it was phenomenal. I’ll absolutely make this again.
Why buy it when you can make this in minutes yourself? I used chunky peanut butter and didn’t have miso so just used Trader Joe’s Chinese spice and it came out heavenly! Perfect for cooking, dipping, and, I bet even for marinating!
Absolutely fabulous. Fresh tasting. Thank you!
Yum! I grilled tofu in this sauce. So good! I subbed PB with tahini and honey with xylitol I’m guessing it would be even better if I’d made it as directed. 🙂