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Easy Tamarind Sauce Recipe
5 from 9 votes

Easy Tamarind Sauce Recipe

This easy tamarind sauce recipe is a deliciously sweet and sour condiment that can be used as a dipping sauce for samosa chaat or a marinade for meat and fish!

Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
20 mins
Servings: 3 servings
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Asian, Indian

Ingredients

  • 2 Tablespoons tamarind paste It comes in the form of a brick. You can also use dried tamarind pods- just double or triple the amount of pulp used, concentrated
  • 1 C water You can use less if you want to expedite the cooking process but make sure all the tamarind is covered, boiling
  • 1 Tablespoon jaggery or palm sugar or brown sugar
  • 1 knob ginger sliced thinly. Substitute with ½ teaspoon ginger powder if necessary
  • 1 dried chili cut into ½inch pieces. Substitute with chili powder if needed.
  • ½ Tablespoon soy sauce I used soy sauce as it gives the glaze more umami but if you want it strictly Indian, substitute with salt, to taste. (I used about ½ teaspoon, light

Instructions

Making tamarind water
    Cup of Yum
  1. Remove 2 Tablespoons of Tamarind paste from the tamarind brick. (More or less- the tamarind is quite sticky so it's hard to be exact.)
  2. Place the tamarind in a small bowl with 1 Cup of hot or warm water till the pulp has softened. (The water should have turned brown.)
  3. Strain the tamarind liquid through a sieve, making sure to press out all the water.Note: you may need to massage the pulp with your hands to break the strings apart.
  4. Discard the seeds and stringy bits left in the sieve. Keep the tamarind water for your sweet tamarind chutney (see below.)
Making tamarind sauce
  1. Pour the tamarind water into a small saucepan, followed by the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger and chili. Cook over medium heat to medium-high heat till thick and syrupy. I cooked mine for about 15-20 minutes but you can shorten the time if you want a thinner sauce.
  2. Taste and if you've boiled it down a bit too much (and it's become a bit salty), add more sugar and/ or more water.Note: remember to stir every now and then or the sugar will catch at the bottom of the pan!

Notes

  • Easy Variations
  • Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its accuracy.
  • Spiced: for Indian tamarind chutney, add ½ teaspoon of chaat masala OR ¼-1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder and ¼-1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander powder to the Indian tamarind dipping sauce. Use less water and cook for a longer time, till the sauce is nice and thick (remember to stir as the sugar will burn.)
  • Sweeter: add more sugar
  • Tarter: use less sugar