Recipes With Hoisin Sauce

This spicy bok choy slaw couldn't be easier to assemble—you'll only need to follow the first step of the recipe. Toss and enjoy.

A sweet-tangy-spicy glaze of Asian pantry staples caramelizes beautifully under the broiler. To complete the meal, serve with jasmine rice tossed with sliced green onions and lime rind strips.

This just might become one of your go-to weeknight mains. It’s incredibly easy to make, near foolproof, and a guaranteed family pleaser. It works especially well with sustainable farmed salmon, which is oilier than wild salmon. The sweet-nutty-salty sauce is a perfect match for the rich fish and tames any sort of fishy flavors the salmon might have. Be sure to top the fillets with any remaining sauce in the baking dish—you don’t want any of that goodness to go to waste. Serve with steamed green beans and brown rice or quinoa for an easy, well-rounded meal.

A takeout favorite gets a super fast (and healthy) makeover that everyone will love. Savory sirloin gets a splash of vibrant green and kick of fresh flavor with broccoli florets and sliced green onions. Serve over brown rice for a delicious and satisfying meal.

The noodle salad is delicious cold, perfect for warmer weather. Toss in any vegetables you like, such as snap peas and bell peppers.

Make-Ahead Tip: Make the udon noodle salad and marinate the steak the night before. Sprinkle the steak with salt and pepper before grilling.

Many traditional barbecue sauce recipes start with ketchup—a great base because it’s already thick and sweet. Here, we use hoisin sauce as the starting point of a citrus-spiked BBQ sauce; it works just as well as ketchup, lending sweet, salty notes with warm spice notes of star anise. We look to 2 kinds of citrus for big flavor boosts: orange juice for mellow sweetness and lime juice for tang. You can also substitute cider or white vinegar for lime juice if you don’t have that fruit on hand. Be sure to line the baking pan with foil coated with cooking; the sticky-sweet sauce would make a hard-to-clean mess if it went directly on the pan.

The thigh meat lends an especially moist, rich flavor, but you can use any leftover chicken.

With its zippy, tangy flavor, cranberry sauce makes a natural partner for sweetly spiced hoisin sauce. Add quick-pickled cukes and pillowy Chinese buns, and the bird takes a delicious detour East. 

This recipe gives you a faster route to “roasted,” lightly caramelized carrots. Instead of cooking in the oven (and waiting for it to preheat), here you cook the carrots on the stovetop in a cast-iron skillet. The key is to keep the carrots still; you’ll cook them for 5 minutes without stirring, then stir and cook undisturbed for another 5 minutes. The results are beautifully browned, crisp-tender carrots that take about a third of the time as oven-roasted. A hint of hoisin and maple syrup enhance the sweetness of the carrots without rendering them cloying.

This dinner is table-ready in just under 30 minutes. Use time-savers like bagged, pretrimmed sugar snap peas for this quick one-dish meal.

Chinese restaurants serve mu shu pork with Mandarin pancakes. On a busy weeknight, whole-wheat tortillas are an easy sub. Look for trimmed boneless pork shoulder. If all you see are large cuts, ask your butcher to cut off a 1-pound portion.

For a fun, Asian-inspired twist on the same old sloppy joes, turn to flavor-packed hoisin sauce. We combine it with ketchup and a hint of Sriracha to make a delicious sauce that coats lean ground beef. You can also use ground turkey or ground chicken, or try a combo of ground meat and lentils to introduce more plants into your dinner. If you don’t have Sriracha on hand, you can substitute an equal amount of other hot sauce or 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper. We top our joes with a thin slice of red onion for crunch, color, and an allium bite—but if you have kimchi in your kitchen, it would be great, too.

Lean beef tenderloin is a good candidate for broiling because it won't render much fat that could smoke or flare under the broiler.

Served over brown rice with snow peas and shiitake mushrooms, Asian-inspired Hoisin Flounder is a superfast dinner solution for your busy weeknights.

These chicken thighs are messy, but that's part of the fun. Serve with steamed sugar snap peas and hot cooked rice tossed with green onions.

If you think of veggies as containers for tasty ingredients, dinner gets more interesting. You'll love these Asian-inspired lettuce wraps with their tangy hoisin-peanut sauce.

We turned up the the flavor with this Chinese-style barbecue dish of Grilled Eggplant and Tofu Steaks with Sticky Hoisin Glaze. This vegetarian dish captures the essence of great barbecue without relying on meat.

Quick-pickled cukes give these burgers tart crunch. Panko and egg white hold the patties together. Use cilantro leaves on the burgers as you would ­lettuce for herby freshness.

This five-ingredient salmon marinates for eight minutes then cooks for eight minutes and is guaranteed to please.

Soba noodles are made of buckwheat flour and have a toasty, nutty flavor. You can sub whole-wheat linguine if you can't find them.

Red bell peppers are the star vegetable in this stir-fry, a crisp, sweet counterpoint to the serrano chile heat. Use any vegetables you like, but keep it simple; one or two vegetables, plus the basil and chicken, are all you need.

 Look for sweet-savory hoisin sauce on the Asian foods aisle. Other uses: Brush over salmon, or combine with soy sauce, ginger, and sesame oil for a flavorful marinade. Serve with Radish and Carrot Slaw.

Lettuce wraps are a fresh alternative to pancakes or tortillas. If you can't find Bibb lettuce, iceberg will work.

It's never a bad idea to have a good supply of dumplings on hand. Ours taste better and are much lower in sodium than what you'll find at the store.

Made from a simple combination of rice flour, water, and salt, rice paper has about 30 calories per 8-inch round—that's 80% less than the same size flour tortilla. While filling one summer roll, let another rice paper soak.