Was General Tso’s chicken once your go-to take-out order? Make it at home and make it VEGAN too with my homemade General Tso’s Sauce recipe.
First things first… why is the sauce called General Tso? General Tso was a Chinese war hero but he has nothing at all to do with the North American-Chinese battered chicken and sauce dish that now bears his name.
According to the Huffington Post, it was a Chinese chef named Peng Chang-kuei who was working at a restaurant in Taiwan in the 1950s who created the recipe and named it after General Tso. Read more about the story here.
Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the recipe!
The key to a successful General Tso’s sauce is to get the balance of flavors just right. You want to hit the sweet, salty, spicy and sour flavor notes plus follow up with a good amount of heat.
Chicken broth is replaced in this recipe with veggie broth. The rest is super simple and you should be able to throw it together with what you’ve got in the cup – ketchup, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce among other ingredients!
If you don’t have the chili garlic sauce to hand, feel free to sub in fresh garlic and chili, just watch how much chili you use – you want just enough heat to give a kick but you still want to be able to taste the nuances of the other ingredients.
This sauce comes together in under 10 minutes and you can serve it over crispy tofu like a regular General Tso’s dish or simply pour it over grilled tofu and veggies with rice.
Want more sauce recipes? Give these a try:
Stir-Fry Sauce for Vegetables
Cashew Cream Sauce
Easy 5 Ingredient Tomato Basil Sauce
Vegan Red Pepper Cream Sauce
Remember, if you make this at home please come back and leave me a comment. I’d love to hear what you dished it up with!
Or if you’re on Instagram, tag us @One_Bite_Vegan so we can see your culinary creation!
General Tso’s Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- ¼ cup ketchup
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp chili garlic sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp sesame oil
To thicken
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tbsp cold water
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients (except cornstarch and water) and heat over high heat.
- In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch and water.
- When the sauce comes to a boil, slowly add in the cornstarch and water mixture while stirring. Bring up to a boil again and turn off heat. Serve over stir-fried veggies or tofu.
This recipe was delicious! Followed the recipe except it was a little light on the spice so I used sesame chili oil instead.
I didn’t have chili sauce so I substituted with gochujang and added 1/2 tsp.minced garlic.. Then bumped the sugar up by a tablespoon. Fan-freaking-tastic!
Loved it! How long would this sauce keep in the refrigerator?
3 tbsp rice vinegar along with the sourness 1/4th cup ketchup and the sourness in the 1 tbsp chilli garlic paste
Made my sauce taste so strong and sour!!! Wasted ingredients worth 2 batches ;((((( as I had to throw the sauce away