This homemade duck sauce recipe is fresh, preservative-free, and you can customize it to your own tastes. Best of all, it’s made with real ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup, and much more flavor than those little packets!
Chinese duck sauce, hot mustard, a bowl of crispy fried noodles, and a pot of hot tea were always served when guests were seated at the Chinese restaurants I worked at in the 80s, and I worked in many of them. For takeout/takeaway orders, we threw a few packets into the bag.
We have shown you how to cook many of your favorite Chinese restaurant dishes. But what about making your own condiments? In this recipe, we’ll show you exactly how to make duck sauce at home.
What is Duck Sauce?
Duck sauce is a condiment popular in Chinese-American takeout restaurants, often served with fried items such as egg rolls, crab rangoon, or wonton strips/fried noodles. It’s usually a thin, jelly-like consistency, orange in color, and has a sweet and sour flavor that contrasts with those savory fried flavors.
There are different variations of duck sauce served in restaurants and sold in jars at grocery stores. Some common ingredients include plums, apricots, peaches, sugar, vinegar, and salt.
But if you ever look closely at the ingredients on a duck sauce packet, you’ll see why you’d want to make your own! Lots of high fructose corn syrup, artificial coloring, and preservatives.
Why Is It Called Duck Sauce?
There are different stories about the name “duck sauce.”
Some say that the sauce was served with deep fried pressed duck, also known as wor shu opp in Cantonese.
The name may also have been derived from a traditional Chinese sour plum duck dish (one of my all-time favorite childhood dishes), as it also has a sour plum flavor.
Whatever the origin, the name stuck, and it became the go-to sauce to serve with fried food.
Is It the Same as Plum Sauce?
Chinese restaurants buy ready-made duck sauce in 5 gallon buckets. I remember the familiar red letters and logo on the buckets of Wah Yoan Duck Sauce in all the Chinese restaurants I worked in. They had a lock on the duck sauce market!
Wah Yoan doesn’t have a direct-to-consumer product or brand that I know of, but plum sauce brands like Koon Chun make a product that’s quite similar.
That said, I think it’s best to make your own duck sauce at home!
What Do People Eat with Duck Sauce?
Duck sauce is served on the side with fried and barbecued dishes like:
But I have seen people put dollops of duck sauce and hot mustard onto their pork fried rice and even on their shrimp with lobster sauce!
Try this duck sauce recipe, and you’ll never look at those plastic packets the same way again!
Duck Sauce: Recipe Instructions
In a small bowl, mix the sugar and hot water until the sugar is dissolved. Add the apricot preserves.
Remove pit from the pickled plum and add to the bowl. The plum is very soft and should fall apart. Then add ½ teaspoon liquid from the pickled plum jar, soy sauce and rice vinegar.
Mix everything together with a fork until the duck sauce is well-combined. Let the sauce sit for 5 minutes and mix again.
This salted pickled plum is a secret key ingredient that most recipes you see on the internet miss! It makes a huge difference in taste and and gives our duck sauce recipe its authentic flavor.
Feel free to adjust this duck sauce recipe to your own tastes.
Add more sugar or apricot preserves if you like the sauce sweeter. Add more rice vinegar if you like your sauce slightly tart. Thin it out further with a little bit of hot water if you’d like a thinner consistency!
How to Make Duck Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons hot water
- 3 tablespoons apricot preserves
- 1 salted pickled plum
- ½ teaspoon liquid from salted pickled plum jar
- 1/8 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon rice vinegar
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix the sugar and hot water until the sugar is dissolved. Add the apricot preserves.
- Remove pit from the pickled plum and add to the bowl. The plum is very soft and should fall apart. Then add ½ teaspoon liquid from the pickled plum jar, soy sauce and rice vinegar.
- Mix everything together with a fork until the duck sauce is well-combined. Let the sauce sit for 5 minutes and mix again.
Notes
Nutrition
Kristin says
I absolutely love this series, and reading about all the history and regional dishes! Growing up in San Francisco I obviously ate plenty of Chinese food but had never ever heard the phrase “duck sauce” until I lived in Detroit, and tried it there, finding it to be bland and lacking. This homemade version sounds perfect though, thank you for making healthy recipes without artificial ingredients!
Bill says
Hi Kristin, so glad you enjoyed the nostalgia and recipes. I personally think one of the biggest, if not most important benefit of home cooking is minimizing/eliminating artificial ingredients from our food :)
Katwyn says
That recipe is a keeper, thanks! Though I’ve had this type of duck sauce before and like it, it’s a type that didn’t quite migrate from the Catskills across Route 84 east to I-91 North and I-90. What passes as the most common sort of restaurant duck sauce in Northern CT & Western MA is a bit different in that it has a sweetened applesauce base, believe it or not, and forgoes the pickled plum.
Bill says
Hi Katwyn, thanks for sharing that interesting fact! This recipe is definitely based on the flavor of that Wah Yoan sauce we got in the 5 gallon buckets, but apple sauce as a base sounds interesting!
Katwyn says
The other isn’t commercially made, but gets made in the white buckets at the restaurants. Squeeze packets of the type like Wah Yoan are favored for take out orders at a few restaurants, though.
Sue R says
This sounds wonderful. We don’t have duck sauce in Australia. The pickled plum in it must make it taste amazing.
Love the blog. We ate Chinese food every single weekend growing up even though my parents are European. and I can’t ever go to Sydney without eating at least two meals a day at Chinatown which is very far from where we live now so I need good Chinese recipes to get my fix. Luckily we have a few Asian supermarkets here and a couple of decent restaurants. We bought the Asian supermarket in the Northern Territory when on vacation out of dried scallops and abalone sauce since they don’t have them here. Lost on opened packet of scallops in the flood in February though :(
Bill says
Hi Sue, thanks so much for your kind comment! Those dried scallops are expensive (big loss) but so delicious when used properly in the kitchen ;-)
Mercy says
Thank you so much for this one! I grew up with duck sauce and then moved to Germany, where it’s non-existant. I’m looking forward to trying this recipe out!
Bill says
Hi Mercy, you’re welcome and hope you enjoy it!
essell says
i love this blog so much and have cooked many many dishes successfully from your pages. i love the identities of each of you, and your individual voices. my favorite game is to start reading and try to guess which of you wrote it, then check the top of the page to see.
but i just wanted to say that you have hit upon something that has entirely mystified me since i moved to the east coast from california in the 90s.
growing up a wasp in orange county, my step pop worked in the produce market, downtown la. my fondest early memories of restaurants was going to a tiny busy chinese resto and having egg drop or birds nest soup in the wee hours while there. later having deep fried eel at general lees? with a dark sweet sauce.
but we never, in sf ctown as well, never were served chinese chips and salsa like here in new york upstate and the city too. wontons, crisp with hot mustard and goopy sweet sauce.
and now you present that: i just read the first words of this post, so i will go back to see if you explain this mystery to me.
again, thank you for your remarkable achievements here contributing to the world of cuisine, and for me especially, family dishes of chinese origin, certain dishes throughout the chinese diaspora and the ways to recreate them.
thank you from your most loyal lo fan!
Bill says
Thanks essel for such a nice comment! Jeff Goldner whose family owned Singer’s restaurant in Liberty NY where I grew up, also hit upon the same point about these crispy noodles, duck sauce and hot mustard being an East coast thing. The trend never really made it to the west coast Chinese restaurants!
Essell says
Thanks Bill. you amaze me with your ability and kindness in answering your fan letters!
Never in China or other countries is this common? Wonder how it became so common here. Cheaper than spicy hoisin I suppose. And in a resto, every penny counts, especially when it comes to giveaways!
Your Holiday Inn was not the Kingston location, right, where your fathers cha siu was so popular.
Bill says
Hi Essell, the Holiday Inn was on route 17, now interstate 84 off exit 100 in Liberty.
Dotti says
What kind of noodles did you used Can you show us the brand of noodle and how long do you fry them in oil
Love you recipes.
Thank you
Bill says
Hi Dotti, we used nasoya egg roll skins, cut them into strips and fried them at 325 to 350 degrees F in canola oil. You can also use egg noodles if you like them thin – see our retro American Chicken chow mein recipe to see how we did those noodles!
Jeff Goldner says
You’re showing your East Coast roots, Bill. This was my go-to snack, of course I had unlimited supplies:)
But you never see duck sauce in the Pacific Northwest except in the Kosher section (Gold’s in giant jars), and rarely Sun Luck in the Asian markets. Both of those use close to natural ingredients. No fried “won ton” noodles on the tables, either. They serve egg rolls with sweet & sour sauce (the kind that glows in the dark) or ketchup (!) – embarrassing to me that my daughters think that’s right. I don’t recall seeing duck sauce when I lived in California either but I think maybe they have it in LA?
When my wife and I started dating, she (Jersey girl) made me two different batches for Valentine’s Day. We will have to try your recipe and fry up some noodles.
Bill says
Hi Jeff, you’re right about the East coast! Duck sauce, hot mustard and fried noodles/wonton skins have gone out of vogue in most restaurants nowadays, since more authentic Chinese food has surfaced. In healthy-living California, I think those deep fried noodles never really caught on in popularity. ;-)
Laura says
Whaaaaat?! You can MAKE your own condiments???? Mind blown. Having said that, I think I’ll give this a try out of curiosity. Thanks for making my day.
Bill says
Hi Laura, Yeeesss! Just like anything else, you can make condiments yourself and know exactly what they contain!
Alfred says
Do supermarkets carry salted pickled Plum, or do I need to shop at an Asian market? Thank You.
Bill says
Hi Alfred, pickled plum can be found in most well-stocked Chinese grocery stores. Most supermarkets don’t carry it, so it’s best to order online if you don’t have a Chinese grocer near you.
Jadine says
I love all of your recipes and the stories behind them! I have a question about rice vinegar. Do I use NON-seasoned rice vinegar in recipes that say rice vinegar?
Again, thank you for this site!
Bill says
Hi Jadine, seasoned vinegars and sauces are very convenient indeed. However, my philosophy on any seasoned sauces is to use the pure/plain version of the sauce. In this case, use plain rice vinegar and add your own seasonings so you can control the flavors in the recipe.
Another point is that many seasoned sauces do add msg. Nothing against msg, though I don’t use it very much anymore. Just something to be aware of! :)