If you like sweet and spicy sauces, we have a wonderful new recipe from Mexico: chamoy sauce. It's a fruity bittersweet salsa that will bring your fruit salads and ice pops to the next level. And, we made it sugar-free, perfect for everyone to enjoy!
Chamoy is a bright red, liquid sauce that combines fruits like apricots, plums, or mangos with lime, chillies, salt and sugar. The contrasting notes of sweet, salty, spicy, and fresh ingredients make this Mexican condiment really unique — a must-try for all salsa lovers!
In our recipe, we opted for juicy apricots as a base for our sauce. Make sure they're plump and ripe, so they'll taste sweeter. Then, we replaced refined white sugar with erythritol. This natural and safe sweetener is almost as sweet as sugar but comes with zero calories, making our chamoy sugar-free.
As for the chillies, dried ancho chillies are a must. These dark red, mild, and slightly sweet chillies are the dried form of the poblanos, one of the most popular chillies in Mexico. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the whole chillies, so we opted for the flakes, which worked perfectly.
Preparing chamoy sauce is almost like making a runny and spicy apricot jam. All you have to do is simmer the ingredients for a good 30 minutes and then blend them until smooth. Then, let the sauce cool down, and you're good to go. Easy!
Once you try chamoy, we bet you'll want to start using it everywhere, as we did! Pour it over a fresh fruit salad, use it to flavour drinks like mangonadas or ice popsicles. It's great even with crunchy nuts, baked crisps, and homemade tortillas. The recipe makes one 400g (14 oz) jar, so you'll have plenty to keep you going!
Ingredients
| Large Ripe Apricots | 6 |
| Lime | 1 |
| Dried Ancho Chilli Flakes | 3 tsp |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp |
| Erythritol (or granulated stevia) | 50 g |
| Water | 280 mL |
Step 1
Before you start, make sure you're using very ripe apricots as they'll taste sweeter and you'll need less sweetener.
Pit and chop the apricots, then zest and juice the lime.
If you're using whole dried ancho chillies, you'll need 1 chilli every 1.5 teaspoons of flakes. Break the stem and discard it; then chop the chillies into small bits.
Now, add all the ingredients to a pot.
We used erythritol as a sugar-free sweetener, but if you don't have it check the tips below for some substitutes.
Step 2
Bring the water to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 35 minutes.
Loosely over the pot with the lid as the sauce will sputter while it boils, but at the same time, you still want some of the water to evaporate.
At the end of cooking time, the apricots should be mushy, and you should have a thick, dark orange syrup.
Step 3
At this point, taste the mixture and adjust the ingredients according to taste if needed: add more lime juice for sourness, erythritol for sweetness, or chillies for spiciness.
Transfer all into a blender and blitz into a smooth and runny sauce; alternatively, use an immersion blender right into the pot.
Step 4
Pour your delicious sugar-free chamoy sauce into a bottle or jar and let it cool down completely before using it.
The sauce will thicken slightly as it cools down, but it will still be pourable. If you want it even more pourable, then dilute it with a splash of water.
Store the chamoy in the fridge and consume it within one month.
Tips
You can swap erythritol with 16g (4 teaspoons) of granulated stevia. Alternatively, use 40g (1.4 oz) of coconut sugar, raw can sugar, or icing sugar if you don't need the sauce to be sugar-free.
Like this Recipe?
You can also use apricots to make BBQ sauce!
For more spicy sauces, check out these ideas: