Chicken Rice Chilli Garlic Sauce

Updated February 2025

The most important part of any Hainanese Chicken Rice dish is the chilli sauce that goes with it. The bottled chilli sauces just don’t work. Every single Malaysian dish has its own chilli condiment and the wrong chilli sauce just enhances the dish and the wrong one just ruins it.

In Kuala Lumpur, I’d rate Chicken rice shops based on the quality of their condiments. With the wrong Chilli garlic sauce, the whole dish can be ruined. So this simple condiment is quite an essential part of the dish.

This is a very simple recipe for the chilli sauce that goes well with Hainanese Chicken Rice, Crispy Roast Pork or Char Siu.

For the most simple version, you just need 2 ingredients, chilli and garlic. For a little bit extra, you can add ginger too, although I like to make a separate ginger sauce on the side.

What chillies to use to make chilli garlic sauce for Chicken Rice ?

Choose fresh finger chillies and depending on what country you are in, they are different varieties with different flavours. In the US, you can use Arbrol chillies. For an extra hot sauce, add some red bird-eye chillies.

For garlic, you can follow the proportions in my recipe or adjust it to your taste. The finished sauce should be quite garlicky and warning, quite anti-social.

Traditionally, you would make it with a mortar and pestle and it can time-consuming and messy. The alternative when you live in an apartment with limited space and no time, use a blender like a Nutri Bullet or Ninja Bullet. It makes this chilli sauce recipe quick and easy.

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Chicken Rice Chilli

The ultimate condiment to go with Hainanese Chicken Rice and other roast meats. In Malaysia and Singapore, this is what we serve instead of the more Cantonese Spring Onion oil.

Prep Time9 minutes mins

Total Time10 minutes mins

Servings: 4 people

Calories: 20kcal

Ingredients

• 8 red chillies roughly chop
• 3-5 small red Thai bird chillies if you want it spicier, roughly chop
• 4-6 cm ginger cut into small pieces
• 8 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp Lime Juice optional
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions

• Use a pestle and mortar to pound the chilies until you can't see the seeds, or you can use a blender but it doesn't taste the same as you can't pulverise the chilli enough. A Vitamix or powerful blender might give you a better result than a regular blender or food processor.
• Then add the garlic and salt, pound until it turns into a paste then the ginger.
• Add salt and sugar to taste. Serve with some dark soya sauce with Chicken Rice.
• This will keep in a sealed bottle in the fridge for about a month and more if you add a film of oil on top.

Notes

This is really quick to make if you have a Nutri Bullet type blender. I tend to now make this when I want a quick chilli sauce to go with my meal. Takes just a few minutes. 

Some people like to add some lime juice to this too but that depends on where you came from and what you are used to. Some coffee shop Chicken rice sellers dilute theirs with chicken stock or fat and it has a runnier consistency. Some places even add vinegar but I think this spoils the flavour of the fresh chilli taste.

You can make a large batch of this recipe and keep it in a jar. This will keep in the fridge for about a month or ages in the freezer.