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Best Sauces For Egg Rolls ⋆ 7 Of The Best Combinations! ⋆

Jeremy Williams We Want The Sauce Founder and Editor In Chief
Written By: Jeremy Williams
Published Date:
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So you’ve got or want to serve your guests some egg rolls? But you’re not sure what sauce to serve alongside them, right? Besides, these vegetable (and, usually, meat) filled fried finger food could do with some extra complimentary flavor. Thankfully, you’ve come to the right place. Here, I am going to suggest seven sauces that pair really well and discuss why, as well as mention what sauces to avoid.  

So what sauces pair best with egg rolls? A simple soy sauce works well if you want something simple and salty. For a bit more flavor and sweetness, go with hoisin sauce or kecap manis (i.e., Indonesian sweet soy sauce). For something a little spicier but still sweet, try hoisin sauce. For something significantly stronger, a sweet and sour sauce or a hot and spicy sauce will work well. If you just want just the spice, not the sweetness, opt for sriracha. Lastly, for something a little different, try peanut sauce. 

Truth be told, a lot of different sauces can be used as dipping sauces for egg rolls.

They are incredibly versatile, which makes certainly helps!

Now, let’s find out a bit more about the flavor profile of these different sauces, as well as what sauces to avoid for egg rolls!

Best Sauces For Egg Rolls

Hoisin Sauce

Hoisin sauce is traditionally used both as a marinade for meats and as a dipping sauce. When serving your egg rolls, you’ll definitively be using it as a dipping sauce! 

Hoisin sauce is both sweet and salty. It is fairly similar to plum sauce, though hoisin sauce is a tad spicier. 

While regional recipes vary (and modern producers add preservatives, colorants, etc.), traditional hoisin sauce is made from fermented soybean paste. 

To that, water, salt, and some form of sweetener (usually sugar) is added. 

The hoisin sauce may contain some form of starch, such as sweet potato, rice, or wheat. It also tends to contain vinegar, sesame oil, and garlic. 

Chili is also often used in hoisin sauce, but how hot the sauce varies. It does not tend to be all that hot. 

If you’ve ever had Pekin duck, it is often served with hoisin sauce, so you’ve likely tried it then!  

Sweet and Sour Sauce 

If you’re having egg rolls, one of the first sauces that spring to mind as a dipping sauce is sweet and sour sauce. As the name implies, the sauce is both sweet and sour. 

While there are many different variations of sweet and sour sauce, it’s often made from pineapple juice, sugar, vinegar, and corn starch. Garlic, ginger, and chili are popularly used to flavor it. 

Soy Sauce

If you just want something salty to dip your egg rolls in, then soy sauce is perfect! You can spruce it up by adding some sesame seeds and crushed chili. 

You can even stir in some honey for sweetness, but this is by no means necessary. Especially if you like to keep your food a tad plainer and simpler. 

When choosing a soy sauce, check that it doesn’t contain any funky additives–real soy sauce doesn’t need additives. 

Also, if you prefer your soy sauce quite salty, go with the Chinese version that contains no wheat (it’s made from fermented soybeans, salt, and water alone). 

The Japanese version, shoyu sauce, contains wheat in addition to the above. As a result, it’s a bit sweeter and also contains alcohol (as a byproduct of the fermentation process–there’s no added alcohol). 

For something significantly sweeter that also has fragrant spices in it, try kecap manis–a sweet Indonesian soy sauce. 

Hot and Sweet/Sweet and Spicy/Sweet Chili Sauce

This is a name for a multitude of sauces that you’ll find in the supermarket aisles. You’ll also find plenty of recipes for them online. 

The main idea is that the sauce is hot and spicy; everything else is pretty much a variable, though it tends to contain some form of chili, sweetener, and vinegar.

If it’s labeled as sweet chili sauce, it definitively contains those three ingredients in addition to garlic and, sometimes, ginger. 

While traditionally, egg rolls will be served with a regular sweet chili sauce, you’ll find brands that create a sweet and spicy sauce that has a somewhat different flavoring. You can play around until you find the sauce you love!

Thai Peanut Sauce

Thai peanut sauce is another delicious sauce to use as a dipping sauce for egg rolls! It’s sweet, salty, and flavorful all in one go! 

You can easily whip up your own peanut sauce by blending together some peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, chili, garlic, lime juice, ginger, and water.

For the full recipe, look here or have a browse on the internet for a recipe that suits your tastebuds better! 

You can also pick up peanut sauce in a well-stocked supermarket. 

Sriracha Sauce

This sauce is simply hot. It can also be found in shops all around the world, pretty much, so you won’t have a problem shopping for it. 

If you want to make sriracha sauce yourself, you can do so, too. It contains a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt.

Mango Dipping Sauce

If you want a fresh and fruity dipping sauce to go with your egg rolls, try making mango dipping sauce.

Yes, it will require you to make the sauce yourself, but it takes about five minutes. All you need to do is toss the ingredients in a blender and press blend! 

Recipe for Mango Dipping Sauce

  • ½ tbsp of red onion chopped
  • 1 tsp of garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp of soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp of lime juice
  • 1 tbsp of sweet chili sauce
  • ½ cup of frozen mango chunks

For the full instructions, see here, though literally; all you have to do is toss it in a blender and press the button! 

What Types of Sauces Pair Best With Egg Rolls?

Egg rolls are versatile and tend to have a mild taste. As such, you can use a variety of different flavors for your dipping sauces. Salty, sweet, and spicy sauces all work really well, as do sauces that combine all three! 

Soy sauces are very popular when it comes to dipping sauces for egg rolls. 

If you think that plain soy sauce is, well, too plain, you can flavor it with garlic, ginger, sesame seeds, and/or chili. You can also add honey, molasses, or sugar to sweeten it. 

Any kind of sweet and spicy/hot sauce also goes really well with egg rolls. More fruity sauces, such as a sweet and sour sauce, are also a great combo. 

On the note of fruity sauces, as egg rolls are Asian, you tend to serve them with Asian sauces. 

That’s not to say that you can’t serve them with mango chutney. In fact, they’d likely be absolutely delicious served with mango chutney! 

And any other chutney, or sauce, that offers the same hot, sweet, and spicy combo that a sweet chili or sweet and sour sauce does. 

If you want to keep it hot and simple, stick to a hot sauce such as sriracha. 

Again, one tends to use Asian hot sauces for egg rolls, but if you have another favorite brand of hot sauce, try it out. It may work perfectly. The meal will just have a slightly less Asian angle. 

While not mentioned above, some people suggest you dip your egg rolls in fish sauce. Why not try it? 

Any Asian sauce you can find on the shelves of your local store is a contender. You just have to play around until you find the one you like the most. 

What Sauces To Avoid Serving With Egg Rolls

It is generally best to avoid cream-based sauces, BBQ based sauces, and tomatoey-salsas. These flavor combinations do not typically pair that well with egg rolls.

Normally, you don’t serve egg rolls with sour cream-based sauces. 

Mainly because they can’t be found on an Asian menu. In Latin America, on the other hand, you’ll find sauces such as poblano cream sauce, that’s a classic dipping sauce that side. 

Likewise, while hot sauces come from all corners of the world, one tends to stick to the Asian ones when serving an egg roll. 

For example, you can buy a hot and spicy chipotle sauce. That kind of sauce has a smokey flavor associated with BBQs, not egg rolls. 

While you can serve egg rolls with a kind of Asian salsa, such as the mango sauce above, you don’t serve them with South American salsas.

Again, this is because it’s an Asian dish that’s traditionally served with Asian sauces and is best paired with Asian flavors. 

If you find egg rolls that have been “Westernized” and contain something like egg and bacon, say, then, of course, you can use a different set of sauces. 

In fact, for that kind of egg roll, a BBQ sauce or smokey chipotle sauce would likely be ideal!

Looking for other sauce recommendations for other delicious finger foods? Then check out my other guides below:


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