Guilin Chili Sauce

Guilin chili sauce has a history of more than one hundred years. Together with Guilin San Hua Liquor and Guilin Fermented Bean Curd, it is one of what is known as the “Three Treasures of Guilin”. The main ingredients include good quality chilies, garlic and fermented soya beans. With the spicy and fragrant flavor, Guilin Chili Sauce is a good condiment. It sells well in south China and Southeast Asian countries. The small and exquisite glass bottled sauce is quite easy to carry, which is a good souvenir for your families and friends.
 

Flavors of Guilin Chili Sauce

Guilin Chili Sauce is famous for its unique spicy and fragrant flavor, and there are different varieties due to different ingredients. Garlic Chili Sauce is added with chopped garlic, and adding fermented black bean to the Garlic Chili Sauce makes Fermented Black Bean Chili Sauce with Garlic. Both of them are the oldest and most traditional chili sauces in Guilin. Many other flavors are also available based on the two, such as beef flavor, oil flavor, and peanut flavor.
 

What's the Best Match for Guilin Chili Sauce?

1. Add the chili sauce into other dishes, like Guilin Rice Noodles, hot steamed buns and tender tofu. It will enrich the flavor of the dish.

2. It can be used as a seasoning for cold, fried or steamed dishes and the most famous one is steamed fish with chili sauce.
 

Famous Brands of Guilin Chili Sauce

Hua Qiao Chili Sauce 花桥牌辣椒酱:

It is the most famous chili sauce brand in Guilin, having a history of 50 years. After continuous innovation, it now has three series of nearly 20 varieties of chili sauce: traditional fermented, boiled and fried. They use high-quality vegetable oil, dried chili or fresh chili as the basic raw materials, and the process adopts both traditional techniques and modern technologies.
Average Price: CNY 10 / 280g.
 

Zhong Bang Garlic Chili Sauce 中邦蒜蓉辣椒酱:

Zhong Bang Garlic Chili Sauce uses chili and garlic as the main ingredients, and has special sesame oil added. It tastes spicy and slightly salty. You can mix it with noodles, put it into steamed buns, and it’s also a good choice for cold dishes.
Average Price: CNY 8 / 230g.
 

Li Jin Ji 李锦记辣椒酱:

Li Jin Ji was founded in 1888, and produces various sauces. Among its chili sauce products, the chili sauce with garlic is the most popular one. They mix chilies and garlic in the right proportion to produce a spicy and refreshing sauce. It can be used for cooking pasta and vegetables.
Average Price: CNY 20 / 226g.
 

How to Make Chili Sauce at Home

Prepare fresh chilies, fermented black beans, and garlic in a ratio of 1:1:1 and some liquor; Guilin San Hua Liquor would be the best.

Step 1: Wash and dry the chilies and garlic.
Step 2: Chop the chilies, fermented black beans, and garlic.
Step 3: Place them in a large bowl and add salt according to your taste, and then mix them.
Step 4: Put them into a sealable 250ml jar and compact well.
Step 5: Pour 50ml liquor above the chilies and seal the jar for fermentation for about 1 month.
 

Making Tips:

1. All containers must be clean and free of oil.
2. If you are garlic lovers, you can add more to the recipe; if you prefer the taste of fermented soya beans, you can add more too.
 

Story of Guilin Chili Sauce

Once upon a time, there was a man named Wang who thought of a way to store the chilies for winter: marinate chilies with salt. He thought that salted pork tasted delicious and didn’t go bad after a few months, so salt could also be used to marinate chilies. He did so and two months later, the salted chilies were really delicious. But the chilies were too big, some of which were not salty, yet. So he chopped up fresh chilies and salted them, and the salty chilies did taste better than before. The only drawback was that the salty chilies were so spicy that northerners couldn’t accept them. Later, he chopped up the garlic that people in the north liked to eat and put it into the chili. The delicious taste even attracted his neighbors.

Too much salt causes the chilies to keep secreting water, and after a few months the chilies would start to spoil. One day when Wang was eating rice noodles in a restaurant, he came across a farmer. The farmer’s chili pie made with black beans caught Wang’s interest. After a brief chat, he learned that the fermented black bean has a strong water absorption ability. He tried to add fermented black beans to salty chilies and garlic, and the result was the flavorful chili sauce.
 
- Last updated on Oct. 23, 2020 -