A Stolen Secret From Thai Restaurants. During my years working in Thai restaurants, I learned that most of them have a pre-mixed sauce which they call "stir-fry sauce." And they put this sauce in nearly EVERYTHING! This is how restaurants are able to cook your dishes so quickly, and no, all your dishes won't taste the same as I explain below. Keep this sauce in your fridge and it's totally game changing for weeknight meals!

One sauce for all of your stir fries: meat, veggies, fried rice, noodles, and even marinade!

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How to Use Universal Stir Fry Sauce

To give you an idea of how versatile this sauce is, here are different ways you can use it:

The most straightforward use is in a stir fry, such as this mixed vegetable stir-fry. But you can stir fry absolutely anything with this sauce.
You can use it to make a noodle stir fry like pad see ew or drunken noodles.
It works wonderfully in fried rice, like this chicken fried rice.
You can also use it as a base sauce to which you can add other ingredients to make it unique. For example, you can add some Thai chili paste, and you'll get a flavour much like my cashew chicken.
You can use it as a marinade! Use it on steaks, chicken, pork chops, whatever you want!

Be sure to watch the video tutorial where I demo how to use this sauce in a basic meat-and-veggie stir fry, with lots of stir frying tips. It's like stir frying 101!

No, All Your Dishes Won't Taste the Same

You might think, wait, doesn't that mean all my stir fries will taste the same? No! The sauce isn't everything. All the veggies, herbs, meat, spices that you add contribute more flavour than you think.

Yes, the sauce has its own delicious taste, but because it is a salty sauce, its other primary function is to be "the salt" in the dish. In all dishes, salt is there to enhance flavours of all the other ingredients.

Think of it like this: if you eat mashed potato that's properly salted, you don't think, "mmm, this is salty mashed potato." But you DO think, "this is delicious mashed potato!" Salt brings out more of the potato flavour for you to enjoy. This stir-fry sauce does the same thing.

One Sauce, Many Possibilities

If you want to "jazz up" the sauce with other ingredients, here are some ideas. I would add these to individual dishes when you cook; not to the base sauce itself:

Thai chili paste or nam prik pao. This is a thick sweet-and-savoury, jam-like paste with an intense flavour. Check out this homemade Thai chili paste recipe to see what goes into it. I would add at least 1 tablespoon of chili paste per serving. Check out this recipe for Shrimp and Chili Paste Stir-Fry as an idea.
Thai fermented soybean paste or tao jiew. This can be described as the Thai miso, but with a runnier consistency. We often pair it with fish, or use it in a vegetable stir fry like this popular Water Spinach Stir Fry recipe.
Sugar. I always add a little bit of sugar to stir fries, not to make them sweet, but to balance the saltiness of the base sauce. It will give a more "well-rounded" flavour. Different dishes require different amounts of sweetness, which is why I don't add the sugar to the universal sauce, but you can absolutely can if you want maximum simplicity when cooking; instructions for adding sugar are included in the recipe below. Instead of sugar you can also substitute sweet soy sauce or other sweeteners.
Curry paste. While generally when we use curry pastes in stir-fries we only add fish sauce, it's certainly possible for you to use this base sauce instead. Check out this recipe for Cauliflower Stir Fry with Yellow Curry as an idea.
Sriracha or another hot sauce. This will add heat and also tartness because most hot sauces have vinegar. Check out this sweet and sour stir fry as an idea.
Black soy sauce or dark soy sauce. This will add a delicious-looking dark colour to your stir-fry, like in the iconic Pad See Ew. If used in large enough amounts it will also add a deep molasses-like flavour. Don't add too much though, as it can be a bit bitter and tastes funny. You can also add a little bit right into your base sauce if you always want it a little darker. Note: If using Thai black soy sauce it is not very salty, so you can add as much as needed, but if using Chinese dark soy sauce, it is quite salty, so you may need to use less of the base sauce if you're adding a lot into the dish.

Storing Universal Stir Fry Sauce

Kept in the fridge, this will last indefinitely. The sauces are very salty, which means bacteria do not grow well in it. You still want to keep it refrigerated though because oyster sauce is the one ingredient in this mix that can get moldy at room temp.

How to Make a Vegan Version

Instead of oyster sauce, look for something called "Vegetarian Stir Fry Sauce." This is available in many big Asian grocery stores, and it will have a consistency similar to oyster sauce.

Instead of fish sauce, you can buy a vegetarian fish sauce substitute, but I've found that they're not always good. So unless you've found a brand you like, I recommend just using more soy sauce.

Use more than 1 type of soy sauce. If you're not using fish sauce, I recommend using both soy sauce and Thai seasoning sauce (like Golden Mountain Sauce) so you can achieve a more complex flavour. You can also use Maggi Seasoning or Bragg's Liquid Amino as well.

Other Useful Tips

You can also use this sauce as a marinade! Marinade chicken thighs for the oven, or slices of meat on skewers for the grill ... anything!
Still season your meat separately. If you're making a stir fry with meat, such as chicken, pork, or beef, I'd still add a little bit of soy sauce or fish sauce to the meat separately so that the seasoning is in the meat, not just in the sauce! I demo how to do this in the video.

Questions about Thai Sauces?

Got questions about any of the sauces I used? Check these out and all your questions will be answered!