6 Must-Try Vegan Stir Fry Sauce Recipes
by Olivia Biermann
on Jan 20, 2018 (updated Oct 11, 2024)
There’s nothing better than a delicious stir fry sauce! They’re sweet, savoury, tangy, and the best way to boost the flavour of any stir fry or noodle dish. Plus, they can often be used as a dipping sauce for your favorite rice paper rolls or fresh veggies. Try prepping a few this week and using them as a quick flavorful sauce or dipping sauce throughout the week!
Components of a great sauce:
When it comes to making your own homemade stir fry sauce there are a few key ingredients you’ll typically need to make a well balanced flavor profile.
- Creaminess – For the most part, a good stir fry sauce will contain a source of creaminess. It adds richness, and helps make the sauce more satiating. Some of my favorite go-tos are nut butters like peanut butter or almond butter, tahini, garlic chili oil, or sesame oil.
- Sugar – Although vegan stir fry sauce is savoury, it does need a little sugar to balance the savouriness. You can use ingredients such as cane sugar, coconut sugar, pure maple syrup, ketchup, agave syrup, or brown sugar. Really any sugar will work!
- Salt – A key component in any stir fry! Without salt, your vegan stir fry sauce recipe will be incredibly lacking in flavour. Soy sauce, coconut aminos, tamari, sriracha, or salted nut butters work well! If you’re sensitive to sodium, use low sodium soy sauce.
- Acid – The tangy flavor balances the creaminess from the fats and the saltiness for the soy sauce. A few of my favourites are vinegar, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, lemon juice, or even sriracha (it contains vinegar!).
- Thickening agent – This ingredient isn’t always necessary, but it can be helpful in making a thick sauce that sticks to the veggie stir fry ingredients. Corn starch is my go-to choice, but you can also try ingredient such as tapioca starch, arrowroot powder, even all-purpose flour.
Storage Tips
Each vegan stir fry sauce makes about 1/2 cup of sauce. If you are cooking for more than 1-2 people, I suggest doubling or tripling the recipes.
The sauces will keep for up to 1 week in the fridge, making them perfect for Sunday meal prep. For best results, store them in an airtight container or glass jar such as a mason jar.
Sweet and Sour Stir Fry Sauce
This vegan sweet and sour sauce is one of my absolute favourite Chinese-inspried sauces. It’s best served as a vegan stir fry sauce or dipping sauce. For an extra tangy, sweet flavor, add in some pineapple chunks.If you love sweet and sour sauces, you’ll love this Vegan Copycat Panda Express Orange Chicken and this Sweet & Sour Meatballs recipe.
Maple Sriracha Stir Fry Sauce
I personally love this sweet and spicy sauce best as a dipping sauce for vegan chicken, crispy tofu, or as a stir fry sauce if you love extra spicy food!Peanut Stir Fry Sauce
This sauce is one of the creamiest of the bunch and one of the most versatile sauce recipes. Use it on a creamy ramen noodles or soba noodles dish, drizzled on rice bowls, or to coat your crispy tofu. It’s also a delicious dipping sauce for spring rolls and rice paper rolls.Ginger Garlic Stir Fry Sauce
The simple ingredients in this ginger garlic stir fry sauce make it the perfect go-to recipe for all hot stir fries. It’s lighter in fat, making it great for lighter vegetable stir fry recipes. Try it with sautéed veggies such as green beans, bok choy, baby corn, Brussels sprouts, snap peas, red bell pepper, and broccoli.Lemon Tahini Stir Fry Sauce
Enjoy this bright and creamy sauce with your favorite tofu stir fry or crisp greens! Don’t be afraid to thin it out with a bit of water if it seems too thick. And if your simple sauce recipe seems bitter, it’s possible your tahini isn’t the best quality. Good tahini should be nutty, not bitter!Spicy Sesame Stir Fry Sauce
This vegan stir-fry sauce is less spicy than my maple sriracha stir fry sauce and is a great vegan stir fry sauce or drizzle for rice dishes, noodle dishes, or your favourite mix of veggies.Homemade vegan sauce recipes to try next:
Since posting this video/blog post I have now released a sauce ebook– Saucy! 16 vegan sauce recipes for everyday cooking. This post has great stir fry sauces but if you are looking for other sauces like hot fudge, hollandaise and sweet & spicy ketchup, or dips like chipotle cashew or jalapeño ranch yogurt dip, you might want to check it out!
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6 Must-Try Vegan Stir Fry Sauce Recipes
Ingredients
Sweet & Sour:
- 1/4 cup cane sugar
- 2 tbsp vinegar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp ketchup
- 1 tbsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water mixed together
Maple Sriracha:
- 1/4 c sriracha
- 2 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp maple syrup or agave
Peanut Sauce:
- 1/4 cup nut butter (peanut butter, tahini, almond butter, sunflower butter all work well)
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp maple syrup or agave
- 1 tbsp lime juice
Ginger Garlic Sauce:
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 glove garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp maple syrup or agave
Lemon Tahini Sauce:
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp maple syrup or agave
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder (optional)
Spicy Sesame:
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp brown sugar or maple syrup/agave
- 1 tsp sriracha
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
Instructions
For Sweet & Sour Sauce Only:
- Stir together water and cornstarch until combined.
- In a small pot, whisk together sugar, vinegar, water, soy sauce and ketchup until combined.
- Add the corn starch and water and stir. Bring to a simmer on medium heat and whisk until it thickens. This should only take a few minutes.
For all other sauces:
-
Whisk together all ingredients.
Notes
Each recipe makes about 1/2 cup of sauce. If you are cooking for more than 1-2 people, I suggest doubling or tripling the recipes. Sauces can be stored in an air tight container or jar for up to 1 week.
For gluten-free: sub gluten-free tamari for the soy sauce.
For soy-free: sub coconut aminos for the soy sauce.
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These are all amazing. Tried them all except for the Sriracha and Maple as the ingredient list for sriracha is to uncertain. Requesting to correct this.
But they ALL have sugar in! As someone who avoids all sugar to keep my blood sugar down, these are all no goes!
Then why don’t you just take the sugar out as I’m sure you are use to doing when following other recipes? Seems like a simple solution as others have substituted also…
Yummy. I made the maple sriracha using Frank’s (regular hot sauce). Browned slices of tofu in my scan pan then poured in sauce and allowed to cook down, turning tofu occasionally. I made a double recipe and used about 1 and 1/2 of it. Quick, easy and tasty!
Have you got a recipe for teriyaki sauce? Many thanks
I made the sweet and sour sauce here and it came out so nicely!!!! I drizzled it on top of baked tofu and it tastes so good!! Thank you for this recipe!!!!
I made the sweet and sour sauce, with apple cider vinegar that comes with honey, added some date syrup instead of sugar, OMG, it is amazing! My Asian tastebuds also totally approved it.
Thank you for sharing! Looking forward to more of your recipes!
I LOVE the sweet and sour recipe; best ive had- in a restaurant or not!! I serve it over stir fried veggies and brown rice and it is toooo good. I use coconut sugar instead of cane and arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch and it doesnt seem to make a difference (:
Made the sweet and sour sauce. It’s amazkng. Can’t wait to make the others!