Brian Byrd's Photo Blog — Homemade Korean Red Chili Sauce

If I want some good fast food where I live in Albany, Oregon, my number one choice is Toki Teriyaki in the old town. I especially like item number two on their menu, Hot and Spicy Chicken, because it comes with a wonderful sauce to dip the chicken in.

After years of enjoying their scrumptious sauce and wishing they would sell bottles of it, earlier this year I got the idea to try to make my own version at home. How close could I get to their special taste?

The first step was to research some recipes on the Web. It didn’t take long to discover that the primary ingredient is Gochujang red chili paste. Doubting that I could find this at a grocery store in Albany, I ordered a 500g tub on Amazon. More recently I found it at some Asian grocery stores in Portland. As of this writing, the $6.99 price on Amazon, with free Prime shipping, seems a really good deal.

With Gochujang paste in hand, it was time to make a sauce out of it. The 1/3-cup recipe is really quite simple:

2 tablespoons Gochujang chili paste
2 tablespoons rice (or any) vinegar
4 teaspoons corn syrup
1 teaspoon sesame seeds

The first time I made it I used the same amount of granulated sugar instead of the corn syrup, but I think the corn syrup gives a better texture. I also think it would be best to make this at least some days, or even weeks, ahead of time, so the paste gets less pasty, and the flavors can integrate completely.

Because I didn’t want to have to make small quantities of this sauce each time I wanted to enjoy it with a meal, I decided to make a larger batch and bottle it. Around that time I had finished a 7.5 oz bottle of Taco Bell sauce, so I saved and washed the bottle, making it all ready to hold my Korean chili sauce. Here’s the scaled-up, 1-cup recipe:

1/3 cup Gochujang chili paste
1/3 cup rice (or any) vinegar

1/4 cup corn syrup
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

This batch filled the Taco Bell bottle, with a bit left over. Now I can pour as much as I want on whatever I want whenever I want!

This recipe is just the beginning. You can easily experiment with your own variations. I’m quite happy with this simple version. It does not taste exactly like the excellent sauce at Toki Teriyaki, but it is still really good, and is now the reigning Asian hot sauce in the house.

As with numerous other recipes on this Web site, I have made a downloadable PDF version which is especially suited for any mobile device you might be using in the kitchen. It contains both the small and large batch recipes, plus related notes. Check it out and give it a try!

I've been scoping out some empty hot sauce bottles on Amazon, as well as some printable bottle labels. My sauce is so tasty that perhaps I should make a huge batch and give away bottles of it for Christmas gifts!