3 Minute Dumpling Dipping Sauce

No plate of dumplings is complete without a gorgeously balanced dipping sauce. This one uses cupboard staples and is ready in less than five minutes.

Dumplings in a bowl with red dipping sauce.

Dumpling sauce can make or break a plate of dumplings. Too spicy or too salty, and it overpowers the flavours of the filling. Not spicy or salty enough, and it doesn’t let the flavours sing. But this sauce is a gorgeously balanced, salty, spicy, zingy bit of deliciousness that truly does enhance whatever dumpling you pair it with.

All you have to do is mix together a couple of cupboard staples, along with some garlic and scallions to freshen things up. You can either serve the sauce on the side, or I often like to drizzle the sauce on top of and around the dumplings on a serving plate.

Ingredients

Chilli oil. Use your favourite chilli oil here – for the best depth of flavour I really do recommend making your own – it’s really easy and a lot cheaper than buying it from the store.
Soy sauce. Light soy sauce is best, and you can use tamari if you like.
Black vinegar. Or Chinkiang black vinegar – this brings a deep, umami flavour and a hint of sweetness to the sauce, but you can use regular rice vinegar, white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar instead if you like.
Sesame oil. Using a little adds a lovely, toasty nuttiness that pairs so well with the rest of the ingredients.

How to make it

Finely slice your scallion, then crush your garlic and mix them with the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl. It’s that simple.

Hand holding a spoon, mixing red dumpling dipping sauce in a small bowl.

Gold spoon in a small bowl of dumpling dipping sauce.

Got a question?

Can I make the sauce in advance?

Yes, you can. It will keep well for 1 week in the fridge.

How spicy is the sauce?

This really depends on how spicy the chilli oil you use is. If you’re worried, you can reduce the amount of chilli oil to 1/2 a tablespoon, then taste and see what you think. You can always add more.

Can I double the recipe?

Yes! Simply double (or triple) the ingredients.

Everything you need for dumpling night

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Like this recipe? Here are more quick sauces you might want to try

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Hand swirling piece of bread through olive oil dip on a large white plate. — 2 Minute Gochujang Aioli

If you make this recipe, I’d love to hear from you! You can leave me a comment below.