Hoisin sauce

Hoisin sauce is a thick, pungent sauce commonly used in Chinese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fries, or as dipping sauce. It is darkly colored in appearance and sweet and salty in taste. Although regional variants exist, hoisin sauce usually includes soy beans, red chillies and garlic. Vinegar, Chinese five spice and sugar are also commonly added. The word hoisin is from the Chinese word for seafood (海鮮, Cantonese: hoi2 sin1 Mandarin: hǎixiān), but the sauce does not contain any seafood ingredients.

Ingredients

Peking-style hoisin sauce ingredients include starches such as sweet potato, wheat or rice, and water, sugar, soybeans, sesame seeds, white distilled vinegar, salt, garlic, red chili peppers, and sometimes preservatives or coloring agents. Traditionally, hoisin sauce is made using toasted mashed soy beans. Despite the literal meaning, hoisin sauce does not contain seafood, nor is it typically used with it. This sauce does not contain plums, even though it is frequently misidentified as plum sauce in the United Kingdom. It also contains no raisins, even though it is occasionally misidentified as raisin sauce.