Homemade Ginger Scallion Sauce
Ginger Scallion Sauce is very savoury, tasty, and aromatic. The ginger and spring onions/ scallions are mellowed, imparting their essence into the oil. This sauce is perfect as a condiment with rice, noodles, various meats, and fish.
My family loves this sauce very much. I usually cook steamed fish with it or as a stir fry sauce with chicken or meat.
It’s easy and fast to make too! The main ingredients are ginger, scallion, and unscented cooking oil. Some like to add sesame seed oil and salt, for an extra fragrance and to taste. I also add a little bit of oyster sauce for that extra umami-ness, but it is optional and can be omitted if preferred.
Ginger Scallion Sauce Recipe
Preparing the Scallion and Ginger
For the scallion, after washing, cut off the white stem part and set it aside for another dish. Chop the remaining leaf parts finely. Set it aside.
Scrape the skin of the ginger with the sharp edge of the knife, or the edge of the spoon. Cut their forked parts to make scraping the skin easier. Remove off any dark spots on the ginger as well.
Then, cut the ginger into small blocks. You want to do this to make it easier to blend until it becomes a fine paste.
Next, add all the ginger blocks and 1 cup of water into the blender. Although the water is optional, I find that the ginger blends better when there is a little liquid.
Blend the ginger for about 10 seconds. Once the ginger has become a nice, smooth paste, it is ready to be cooked!
Method
Heat a pan with cooking oil over medium heat, and wait for it to warm up. Once it is warm, it is ready. As the ginger paste contains a little water, avoid heating the oil until it’s very hot. Hot oil and water are enemies, when they get in contact, the oil will splash out.
When there are ripples forming at the bottom of the oil, it is warm enough. Carefully add the blended ginger paste into the hot oil, taking care not to splash the oil. There should not be any splatter occurring.
Then, continuously stir the ginger paste in oil until it comes to a boil. This will take around 2-3 minutes.
As the ginger is boiling, the excess water from the paste will evaporate. This makes the paste lose volume, and appear dry. Reduce the heat to medium, and continue stirring to prevent burning at the bottom of the pan.
Add in the chopped scallions, salt, oyster sauce, and sesame seed oil and mix them in until well-combined. The ginger scallion sauce will really become fragrant now. Keep stirring for 2 more minutes, or until the ginger scallion sauce comes to a boil. You want to do this to cook them thoroughly so that they can last longer.
After about 2 minutes, switch off the heat. Taste and adjust by adding more seasonings as preferred.
If it’s perfect, transfer to a separate bowl to cool down completely before storing. As it is, it’s ready to be served with cooked rice, or your favourite chicken rice or noodles. It can even be used in any stir fry meats or vegetables.
Storage Instructions
Once it is completely cooled, some of the ginger oil has separated from the rest of the sauce. This is normal as oil has a lower density than the sauce. To get them to recombine, simply mix them briskly. The sauce can then be scooped into clean, dry airtight containers and kept in the fridge for about 6 weeks. That said, I do recommend consuming this Ginger Scallion Sauce within two weeks before discolouration occurs.
Alternatively, the ginger oil and the ginger scallion sauce can be kept separated and used accordingly in soups, stir-frys, and garnishings. Be sure the container is clean and dry, preventing contamination with water which will spoil the sauce and oil faster.
Enjoy! 🙂
Ginger Scallion Sauce
Equipment
- Knife
- Blender/ Food Processor
- Non-Stick Frying Pan
- Air-Tight Jar
Ingredients
- 500 g ginger, fresh, skin peeled and chopped into smaller pieces
- 5 stalks spring onions/ scallions, washed
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce, optional
- 1/4 tsp sesame seed oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup cooking oil, unscented
- 1 cup water, to help in blending ginger
Instructions
Preparing Ginger and Scallion
- Remove the skin off the ginger. Wash and cut the ginger into smaller pieces.
- Clean the scallions. Remove the white stems. Chop until fine.
- Blend the ginger and water until fine.
Cooking Ginger Scallion Sauce
- Heat a pan with oil over medium heat until warm.
- Add in the ginger paste. Stir until it comes to a boil, or for 2-3 minutes.
- Reduce the heat when ginger and oil are drying up.
- Add in scallions, salt, sesame seed oil and oyster sauce.
- Stir fry for about 2 minutes, or until the sauce comes to a boil.
- When the paste is slightly dry, switch off the heat.
- Taste and adjust as preferred.
Cooling the Ginger Scallion Sauce
- Allow the ginger scallion sauce to cool down.
- After cooling, the oil and sauce separate. It can be stirred to be mixed again, or stored separately.
- Store in dry, airtight containers in the fridge. Can be used as an ingredient/ condiment as-is.
Video
Notes
- Steamed Pork
- Claypot Chicken Rice
- Steamed Fish
- Stir Fry with Chicken
- Stir Fry with Fish
- Condiment
- Best consumed within 2 weeks, before discolouration sets in.
- Lasts up to 6 weeks in the fridge, in an air-tight container.
- Oil can be removed to obtain ginger oil for other dishes.