This easy sweet and sour mango sauce recipe, with chili peppers, honey and smoked paprika, is idea for meat, seafood or veggie kabobs.
Tropical Sweet and Sour Mango Sauce
What’s not to love about the tropical flavors of a sweet and sour sauce made with mangoes year round!
Having spent many years dining on Asian food, I realized that every culture has its own version of a sweet and sour sauce.
A sauce with both a bit of sour from a favorite vinegar, balanced with a favorite sweet, whether honey, agave or simply sugar, has a special way of flavoring savory dishes.
The more years you spend in a kitchen creating recipes, the sooner you realize that every recipe becomes fair game for your own interpretation, so why not ‘sweet and sour’!
Kabobs With A Mango Sauce And Chili
It all happened one day in my kitchen when I was trying to decide what to do with a mound of ripe mangoes and fresh mango juice I had on hand.Â
I was planning to make Mediterranean chicken kabobs, but my taste buds were in the mood for something a little bit tropical.
While there are options for a dipping sauce I could have made, fresh mangoes, spicy red pepper flakes and a sour vinegar, made for a chicken kabob I will make often.
Whether it’s chicken kabobs, seafood kabobs or veggie kabobs, this sauce will make your guests think a professional chef prepared it!
Sauces With Fruit
I grew up in a Mediterranean influenced home, my mom was Syrian, and Middle Eastern food is often prepared with fruit in our savory dishes.
A sweet sauce, especially one being served with lamb or goat, requires less sugar when fresh fruits, or fruit juices are used in the sauce.
Throughout grilling season the sweetest mangoes are available during this time of year, which pair easily with a scotch bonnet pepper or chili pepper, which I grow in the summer months.
Talk about a homemade hot sauce made with fresh ingredients!
Don’t forget to make plenty, and freeze small batches for winter dishes bringing back the fresh flavors of summer with your own sauces.
A Sour Sauce From Unripe Mangoes
Often, when making a sauce that calls for sour flavors, we rely on vinegar; apple cider vinegar for a fruitier note, rice vinegar for a vinegar with the gently grain flavor of the rice, or a white balsamic vinegar for really tart.Â
In Mediterranean cooking we often rely on lemon juice to bring a sour and acidic flavor, however since mangoes are considered more tropical, I wanted to go with lime juice and a white balsamic for my spicy mango sauce.
This sauce is now a favored sauce in my kitchen for seafood, poultry and veggie kabobs for summertime grilling.
- Agrodolce Sauce – My love of Mediterranean food inspired me to make my own recipe for agrodolce, Italy’s sweet and sour sauce, with an American twist; cranberries!
- Onion Jam Sauce – The sweet, sour and heat in this Caramelized Onion Jam, with balsamic and a bit of chili flakes, is an excellent accoutrement to a variety of dishes.
- Brown Butter Chestnut and Sage Sauce – Classic Italian Sage Chestnut Sauce is a vintage Italian sauce Recipe, with chestnuts, pancetta, garlic and white wine, so move over tomato sauce!
Chili Mango Sauce
Easy recipes for a sweet and sour sauce, often in Asian cooking, the sweet and sour sauce base is made from sugar and vinegar, but there are a variety of ways to obtain that balance.
For this recipe, the use of sweet mangoes and honey provided plenty of sweetness to balance the lime juice and vinegar.
However I let loose in search of deeper more complex flavors, adding smoked paprika, turmeric, garlic of course, and I am telling you this sauce is simply amazing.
My cooking creations often rely on the ingredients I am able to grow in the summer months, with the use of honey from local farmers.
How To Make Sweet and Sour Mango Sauce
If you have fresh mangos, great; if not, frozen mangos work just fine too. Gather the ingredients, toss them into a pot and simmer about 20 minutes, puree, and you’ve got the perfect sauce to use on whatever your occasion calls for!
It just so happens that in summertime, I love to skew everything on sticks in the morning and pop them on the grill just before dinner.
For this reason, I created a mango sauce that was both sweet and sour, easy to make and ready when the grill is fired up.
I often make a huge batch, freeze some in portions, to last throughout the lazy days of summer for both seafood and meat dishes.
Ingredients Needed
- Mango, fresh or frozen, though fresh has retained more of its natural juices.
- Lime juice for both acidity and the lovely flavor of limes.
- White balsamic vinegar – to keep the mango color bright instead of a dark balsamic vinegar.
- Honey, with a gentle floral flavor rather than a dominant heavy flavor.
- Garlic, again fresh is best because garlic has its own juices too whereas garlic powder is dehydrated.
- Fresh Chili Pepper though chili flakes can be substituted.
- Smoked Paprika
- Turmeric for both its earthy flavor and its added color.
- Salt of your choice, even a dash of smoked salt for an added dimension to the flavor.
- Olive oil – to use in finishing the sauce and as an emulsifier.
Equipment Needed
- Blender or food processor to puree the sauce once it has simmered and cooled.
- Saucepan to simmer the ingredients.
- Measuring cup and measuring spoons.
- Citrus press to make it easier to extract the juice.
- Whisk that is heat tolerant.
- Stovetop or burner
Easy Sweet and Sour Mango Sauce with Chili
Equipment
- Food processor or blender
- Saucepan
Ingredients
- 2 cups Mango chunks
- 2 tbsp Lime juice
- 1 tbsp White balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp Honey my choice
- 2 Garlic cloves
- 1 tsp Fresh chili pepper chopped
- 1/2 tsp Smoked paprika
- 2 tsp Fresh ginger
- 1/2 tsp Turmeric
- 1 tsp Salt to taste
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
Instructions
- Rough chop the mango flesh, ginger and chili pepper. Place them in a saucepan over medium-high heat, along with minced garlic, and the remaining ingredients except for the olive oil, and bring to a simmer.Â
- Lower and cook with a lid on for 15 minutes.Â
- Remove from the heat, lid off and cool for 5 minutes.Â
- Transfer to a blender or food processor and puree to a smoother texture. Add the olive oil and pulse just a few times to mix.Â
- The finished sauce is now ready to use, or can be stored in an air-tight jar in the fridge for up to a week.Â
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I believe the table... that place that draws people to gather, is the most powerful symbol of togetherness. All that happens before the table is set, the planning, the gathering, the preparing, are all an intricate part of the dance that create the mood of celebration to share with friends and loved ones.