Sacha sauce is the sauce you need to bring home right away

Most of us have a jar or bottle of sauce, herbs or seasoning in the cupboard that you know makes pretty much everything you prepare just that little bit more delicious. HP Sauce with fried eggs, for example, za’atar with just about anything from meat to hummus to shakshuka, furikake with salmon and simply sprinkled over rice. But you may not know this sauce yet, and it’s time to change that!

Where you used to have roughly only Italian and Provençal herbs to choose from, supermarkets thankfully now have a much better selection of seasonings. For some things, though, you should still head to an Asian grocery store—and you really should, because it opens up a whole new world. Try a few of those unfamiliar jars at home, and your stir-fried vegetables will never be the same again! The same goes for this sauce:

Sacha sauce

Also known as sha cha or sa cha, this is officially a Chinese barbecue sauce: a discovery I read about on the American website Bon Appétit. Luckily, I immediately found it from the Bull Head brand at Amazing Oriental near me, and I saw that it can also be ordered online. It’s made with, among other things, soybeans, dried fish, dried shrimp, shallot, sesame and coconut, and it really is delicious. Give it a quick stir before adding a spoonful, because a layer of oil forms on top in the jar. The flavour is umami thanks to the dried fish and shrimp, savoury and layered, but also slightly sweet even though it contains no sugar. The version I found isn’t spicy. It vaguely resembles the also delicious XO Sauce, but it’s much more affordable: the small jar I found in the sauce aisle cost just €2.50. And that’s practically nothing for something that adds so much flavour!

Missing something? Reach for sacha

Although the packaging says barbecue sauce, you really don’t have to leave it in the cupboard until you fire up the grill again. You can eat it with anything that could use an umami boost. Naturally, it’s great with meat or vegetables tossed in the wok, but if you loosen it with, for example, rice vinegar, sesame oil and a few drops of soy sauce, you also have a delicious dressing for drizzling over a salad. Yesterday I tossed some leftover cold chicken, raw chicory, carrot and finely sliced pointed cabbage with it, and it made a truly excellent lunch. Try varying it with rings of spring onion, chopped coriander and some chilli oil stirred through the dressing, and you’ll have a delicious sauce that you can spoon over white rice or baked sweet potato, or through a bowl of steaming-hot Asian noodles. Yum—go and get some!

Also read:

• I tried Chinese mock duck from a tin
• The best-kept secret of Chinese cuisine
• Easy recipe from a top chef #2: BBQ sauce