A delicious spicy chili sauce made with red chilies, onion, shallots, garlic, tomatoes and oil. This quick and easy sambal oelek is ready in 20 minutes! It's the perfect sauce to spice up your life!
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Sambal Oelek (aka Sambal Ulek) is a flavorful chunky hot chili garlic sauce from Indonesia. It's often used in South-East Asia as one of their iconic spicy condiments.
Furthermore, the main ingredient is red chili peppers and green chilies. Other ingredients can include tomatoes, shallots, onion, garlic, oil, and other seasoning ingredients.
Sambal oelek is used in noodle dishes like Mee Goreng, Mee Bodoh, or curries, stir fries, nasi goreng or as a condiment to any dish you want to make spicy.
Sometimes it can be used to marinate meat in Asian cuisine. Also, the natural color comes from the red chilies and tomatoes and not from food coloring.
The flavor of the ground fresh chili paste is elevated with chicken powder, sugar, salt, aromatics and tomatoes. My version also contains tomatoes to give it a richer flavor.
The best part about this easy sambal recipe is that it's made with simple ingredients in little time if you have a food processor or blender.
Ingredients & Substitutes
Please scroll down to below recipe card for exact measurements.
- Whole Fresh Red Chilies: for a mild version, feel free to use Korean red chili peppers, red serrano peppers, or red jalapeños that have been de-seeded. For extra spicy, use cayenne peppers or red bird's eye chilies. Do not use dried chilies.
- Whole Fresh Green Chilies: for a mild version, feel free to use Korean green chili peppers or green jalapeño peppers that have been de-seeded. For extra spicy, use green cayenne peppers or green bird's eye chilies. Do not use dried chilies.
- Ripe Tomatoes: any red kind will work. I recommend using cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes or Roma tomatoes for a sweeter flavor.
- Shallots: or substitute with ¼ onion.
- Onion: or substitute with 3 shallots.
- Garlic Cloves
- White Granulated Sugar: or substitute with cane sugar.
- Salt
- Chicken Bouillon Powder: aka chicken stock powder.
- Fresh Lime Juice
- Neutral oil: any flavorless oil like avocado oil, peanut oil, grapeseed oil, vegetable oil or canola oil with a high smoke point. I would avoid using olive oil or coconut oil due to its heavier scent.
Expert Tips
- Allow the aromatics to char and get browned on the edges to create more flavor.
- When grinding or cooking the paste, avoid inhaling the paste as it's spicy and can cause you to cough.
- Turn on the stove fan or consider cooking the red paste outdoors on a portable stovetop.
- Do not skip on the chicken bouillon powder for a deeper flavor.
- Season the final reduced paste to taste by adding more salt, sugar or chicken bouillon powder.
Instructions
Below are step-by-step instructions on how to make sambal oelek:
- First heat 2 tablespoon or 30 ml vegetable oil in a large pan or wok on high heat. Then add red and green chili peppers, onion, shallots, tomatoes and garlic cloves. Char them until the edges are browned.
- Next transfer the charred ingredients in the pan to a blender, food processor or stone mortar and pestle. Then blend on high or pound the ingredients into a chunky paste.
- Next pour the ingredients back into the pan. For the next part, I strongly recommend turning on the stove fan on high or consider cooking the paste outdoors on a portable stovetop because it's very spicy and will cause you to cough uncontrollably.
- Then bring the paste to a boil on medium-high heat and stir in ½ cup or 125 ml vegetable oil, white granulated sugar, salt, lime juice and chicken powder. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes uncovered. Lastly taste and season with more sugar, salt or chicken powder if needed.
- Lastly allow the hot sauce to cool down and transfer to an airtight container, like a mason jar, for up to 7 days in the fridge. Serve & enjoy!
Storage
- Sambal oelek will last up to 7 days stored in an airtight container in fridge.
- Freezer friendly? Sambal oelek will last up to 5-6 months frozen. To freeze: let the sambal oelek cool down and then pour it into a freezer-safe bag. To enjoy: thaw it overnight in the fridge.
Pairing Suggestions
Sambal oelek serves well as a condiment with:
- steamed rice, brown rice, or fried rice like Nasi Goreng
- starters like Malaysian Curry Puffs
- plain noodles or stir-fried noodles like Bihun Goreng, Mee Goreng, KL Hokkien Mee, Malaysian Char Kway Teow, Bami Goreng, or Penang Char Kway Teow
- protein dishes like Malaysian Chicken Curry, Curry Chicken Wings or Curry Fried Fish
FAQ
Sambal oelek can be made up to 7 days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the fridge or up to 5-6 months and frozen in a freezer-safe bag after it's been cooled. To enjoy it from frozen: thaw it overnight in the fridge and enjoy as is.
I don't recommend using dried chilies for this recipe or even rehydrated dried chilies.
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📖 Recipe
Quick & Easy Sambal Oelek (Indonesia Chili Paste)
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon vegetable oil or any neutral oil
- 2.46 oz red chili peppers fresh kind *See Notes below for recommended kind
- 2.46 oz green chili peppers fresh kind *See Notes below for recommended kind
- 9.17 oz cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes/roma tomatoes
- 2 shallots halved
- 1 small onion quartered
- 1 bulb garlic peeled
- ½ cup vegetable oil or any neutral oil
- 4 tablespoon white granulated sugar
- ½ tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon lime juice fresh
- 3 teaspoon chicken bouillon powder (aka chicken stock powder)
Instructions
- Heat 2 tablespoon or 30 ml vegetable oil in a large pan or wok on high heat. Add red and green chili peppers, onion, shallots, tomatoes and garlic cloves. Char them until the edges are browned.
- Next transfer the charred ingredients in the pan to a blender, food processor or stone mortar and pestle. Then blend on high or pound the ingredients into a chunky paste.
- Next pour the ingredients back into the pan. For the next part, I strongly recommend turning on the stove fan on high or consider cooking the paste outdoors on a portable stovetop because it's very spicy and will cause you to cough uncontrollably.
- Then bring the paste to a boil on medium-high heat and stir in ½ cup or 125 ml vegetable oil, white granulated sugar, salt, lime juice and chicken powder. Simmer on low heat for 10 minutes uncovered. Taste and season with more sugar, salt or chicken powder if needed.
- Lastly allow the hot sauce to cool down and transfer to an airtight container, like a mason jar, for up to 7 days in the fridge. To freeze: let the sambal oelek cool down completely, then transfer to a freezer-safe bag and freeze for up to 5-6 months. To enjoy from frozen: thaw it overnight in the fridge and enjoy as is.
Blaze
Love Love Love this recipe, I've tried many, this is clean, simple and delicious.
And I've made it many times, recently l subbed peaches for the tomatoes as my tree was loaded, turned out amazing. I didn't add the peaches until the second fry and only added half the oil, as the mixture was more moist then the original recipe.
Taste's brilliant, keep up the great work Christie
Christie Lai
Thank you so much for the very kind and positive review, Blaze!!! I'm so happy that you love this recipe so much 🙂 Music to my ears! Thanks for also sharing your recent experience in substituting with peaches this time! How creative. I will have to try that myself. Have a wonderful weekend!
Angie B
What a great find, your recipe. I have been searching stores in Canada and they are telling me there is a problem with the ingredients, sauce is not available any more here. So I put together the best I could your recipe and I have a lovely sauce. Many thanks!!!
christieathome
Amazing, thanks so much for making it with the ingredients that you could find! Happy it worked out.
Rebecca
This recipe is amazing, thank you
christieathome
So happy to read this! Thanks so much for making it, Rebecca! Have a great day.
Anja
Thanks for sharing this more authentic Sambal Olek recipe Christine. Everyone in the internet food universe is using food processors, but so many skip the cooking part, which is closer to how it's made in Indonesia. I'll be putting this one in my recipe book, because like you, I can't live without Sambal Olek. I love making Nasi Goreng but it's become either to expensive, or harder to find good Sambal Olek's to buy.
christieathome
You're very welcome Anja! I'm so glad I could share this authentic way of making this delicious condiment! Thanks for your kind comment and have a lovely day!
Sharron LeVere
Hi Christie! I am making this recipe and I have noticed that in the list of ingredients you ask for 1 bulb od garlic! Is that 1 clove or the whole bulb? If so that is a lot of garlic! Can you please verify this for me. Much thanks!
christieathome
Hi Sharron! It's the whole bulb so that would be about 8 cloves of garlic. The garlic gives the sambal that delicious garlickly flavour so lots is needed 🙂
Heidi | The Frugal Girls
That was a great tip for using jalapenos without the seeds to help tone down the heat so I can serve this to my whole family!
Rosemary
This is the little dish I always see on the table at ramen places right?! PS- I love your tip for cooking it outdoors to reduce indoor air pollution!!
christieathome
Thanks Rosemary! At the ramen places, they probably serve a chili oil that is similar to this but Sambal Oelek contains tomatoes and chicken powder sometimes 🙂
Tasia ~ two sugar bugs
My husband and I love hot sauce!! I definitely need to try this one, especially since I make our dishes less spicy for the girls; then my husband and I can make our as spicy as we want!
Michelle | Sift & Simmer
Always had a jar of this hot sauce in the fridge! Love the addition of chicken powder to the sambal olek... gonna have to try this recipe!