Mondo Knows Facts

Hoisin sauce balances sweet and salty

Fermented soybean paste is sweetened with sugar and thickened to a glaze Hoisin is a thick dark sauce built on fermented soybeans, sugar, vinegar, garlic and spices, sometimes with sesame. The sugar content makes it caramelise quickly in a hot wok, which is why it is added near the end of a stir fry. Cantonese cooks use it as a dip for roast meats and as a glaze. It sits in Mondo's food collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

British Library

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

More facts like this

Tags: hoisin, sauce, china

Hoisin sauce balances sweet and salty: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Fermented soybean paste is sweetened with sugar and thickened to a glaze. The figure is taken from British Library, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a food fact?
Yes. It sits on the Food shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?
The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.