It’s hard to buy sauces that fit into our low sodium diet so every few weeks I devote some time to making a variety of sauces that we’ll use (or freeze) throughout the month. The two that we always have on hand are my soy sauce substitute and red chili garlic sauce or green Thai chili garlic sauce. I use them as dips, in dressings and sauces, for stir-fries, and soups. Barbecue sauce and gochujang are also in heavy rotation in our family. And this week, I happened to have some parsley sitting around so I added chimichurri sauce to the mix. Each of these sauces has less than 5 mg of sodium per tablespoon, so there’s a lot of room to use or modify them to fit any low sodium diet. See below for links to low sodium recipes that use these sauces and check back here for even more low sodium sauces.
Soy sauce substitute: hot and sour soup, dumpling dip, Kung Pao chicken, japchae, kimbap, Dan Dan noodles, gochujang sauce, or anywhere you'd use soy sauce.
Chili garlic sauce (red or green): grilled lemongrass pork, Vietnamese noodle salad dressing, or anywhere you want a little extra heat.
Gochujang sauce: bibimbap, or any Asian-inspired meat/fish dish, especially over rice.
Barbecue sauce: BBQ pulled pork, chicken tenders, BBQ chicken salad.
Chimichurri: empazones, or any grilled meat or vegetable.