Been eating a lot of stir frys recently as we got a new pan & it's excellent.

However, bit miffed at having to pay over £1 for the little sachets of Blue Dragon sauces to add when it's almost ready.

Is it cheaper to buy my own ingredients & make it myself or is that a false economy?

Asda doing their own stir in sauces. Think it's about 60p for the wee jar. Taste just as nice.

You can also make your own. Stock up on oyster and fish sauce. Add in ginger, garlic, chilli etc. You can flavour it to your own tastes!!

The easiest one I use is soy sauce.

Stir fry your onions, garlic, chilli, whatever you like to throw in, and veg. Meat too if you want.
Then add 2-4 tablespoons of soy sauce (you can judge how much) to coat and give a little liquid.

Easy.

We buy the big jars of sauces as they're more economical, then we freeze the left overs in portion sizes.

Would that just not make it salty though?

I'd buy all the seperate ingredients as they are then all in your cupboard ready to use for different recipies.

Soy (light and dark if you want)
Oyster sauce
Hoi Sin
Fish sauce
Chilli sauce
Sweet Chilli sauce
Easy Ginger
Easy Garlic
Chinese 5 Spice
Chicken stock powder (Knorr)
Ketchup
Cornflour
Rice wine or dry sherry
Seasame oil
Stir Fry oil.


and there are probably more

It looks like a lot but they keep forever and can be used in different combinations and different recipies.

Nope, it just acts as seasoning, the same way salt would, it doesnt over power the dish in that quantity, jjust make sure you don't add salt aswell!

I like the Blue Dragon sauces. They don't seemed to be filled with as much rubbish as some other makes.

I find just adding soy sauce tends to be a bit bland, it needs a bit of sweetness to it sometimes.

You can get lower salt soy sauce.

Five spice, tomato sauce and soy is nice, very simple and cheap.

five spice, ginger, soy sauce, pepper, garlic, chilli and lime. Done.