A jar of XO sauce with someone holding a spoon of sauce above the jar.
Why It Works
- Dried seafood, smoky ham, soy sauce, and oyster sauce pack this good-on-everything condiment with deep umami notes.
- Steaming the dried scallops in the microwave after rehydrating makes them tender.
- Shallow-frying the ingredients in stages keeps them from turning into a homogeneous, dry paste.
- Fresh and dried chiles bring a balanced heat to the sauce, tempered by a touch of sweetness from brown sugar.
A few days ago, I had a text message exchange with a chef friend of mine about our Mount Rushmores of condiments and sauces. Condiments are something that we care deeply about. They are ready-to-use flavor-boosters, as vital to restaurant kitchens as they are to home cooks. In fact, if you were to open a restaurant cook's home fridge, odds are you'd find a wide array of jarred condiments, deli containers of pickles, and pretty much nothing else.
Restaurant life doesn't leave you with a lot of time to cook at home, and when I was cooking in restaurants, I rarely had the energy or desire to do anything more taxing in my own kitchen than nuke a couple of frozen pork buns in the microwave. A couple of times a year, I would convince myself that I could overcome the crushing fatigue and get on a healthy kick, and I'd fill my crisper drawers with vegetables, which would inevitably be ignored until they rotted into produce bags full of liquefied sludge that had to be tossed. Only the jars of condiments would remain.
Even when you don't have the will to cook for yourself, a spoonful of the right condiment can elevate a frozen pizza, or a mediocre takeout order. And there were definitely desperate times when I would eat straight out of a jar, when I couldn't trick my fridge into restocking itself no matter how many times I opened it to check. These days, my fridge may not be as Up in the Air depressing and bare as it once was, but condiments still take up most of the prime real estate.
Along with the usual suspects of Heinz ketchup (the one true ketchup), mayonnaise, miso, and five types of mustard, I keep my fridge stocked with harissa, store-bought chili crisp (I still haven't gotten around to making Sohla's amazing DIY stuff), Calabrian chiles, gochujang and doenjang, and one of my Mount Rushmore picks, XO sauce.
I first encountered XO sauce while working at a fine-dining restaurant in Boston, and instantly fell in love with it. It's savory, spicy, and sweet all at the same time, with a can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it depth to it that makes it all the more enticing. Like most of the other condiments on this list, XO sauce packs an umami wallop that makes it an ideal flavor enhancer for tons of savory dishes, cementing its place in the Hall of Fame of condiments.
What's in a Name? What's in a Sauce?
Closeup of a spoonful of XO.
XO sauce is a pretty recent invention; it was created in Hong Kong in the 1980s. Its ingredient list includes a number of pricey items, the heavy hitters being dried seafood—primarily shrimp and scallops, and sometimes abalone— and aged Jinhua ham. For context, high-quality dried scallops can easily cost over $100 a pound.
This is a luxury condiment, and, to connote its high-end pedigree, it was named after French cognac, another prized and pricey commodity popular in Hong Kong. To be clear, there is no brandy in XO sauce, but plenty of other ingredients go into this savory seafood jam.
Crispy pork and dried seafood are constants in XO sauce, along with aromatics like shallots, ginger, garlic, and chiles. After these ingredients are fried in hot oil, they get simmered with Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, chicken stock, brown sugar, and spices until the sauce reaches the consistency of marmalade.
From there, the XO can be jarred up and stored in the refrigerator for well over a month, but I guarantee it will be hard to keep it around for that long.
Sous vide chicken wings with XO sauce.
Once I have a new batch ready, I find myself putting it in or on almost everything, adding it to stir-fried spring vegetables, pasta sauces, and vinaigrettes; using it as a glaze for chicken wings; or spooning it over a simple bowl of steamed white rice.
XO can stand on its own in the flavor spotlight, or it can take a flavor-enhancing backseat. It's amazing stuff, so it's no wonder that it's one of the darling condiments of chefs these days; it feels like every time I go out to eat in New York, I encounter another iteration of XO on the menu.
As with chili crisp, you can buy jarred XO sauce in Chinese food markets or online, but a small, eight-ounce jar can easily run you $30 or more. Along with being very expensive, store-bought XO can be overly sweet, and can vary wildly in quality. Making it yourself is much more economical, and satisfying. Here's how to do it.
How to Make XO Sauce
Ingredients for XO sauce.
Depending on where you live, procuring the ingredients for XO may be the most challenging part of this recipe. Dried shrimp and scallops can easily be found online, but they are often pricey, and you often have to buy them in larger quantities. This can raise the cost of making XO, but, with a little internet deep-diving, you can find dried seafood to fit your budget.
If you live in an area with Chinese food markets, sourcing these ingredients is a whole lot easier, and you will have more options to choose from.
Comparison of two types of dried scallops, the ones on the left are smaller.
As I mentioned earlier, dried scallops can cost over a hundred bucks a pound, but there are some that cost a whole lot less. Pricing varies based on the quality and size of the scallops. While I was working on this recipe, I made a number of shopping trips to Manhattan's Chinatown, where shops display large glass jars of dried seafood, which you can purchase by weight—the whole setup is kind of like that of old-time candy shops. I found fingernail-sized scallops that cost $20 per pound (which is around the same price as what fresh scallops cost in New York City), and large ones that cost much, much more.
One of the nice things about shopping for the dried seafood in person is that you can check for quality before purchasing. Along with giving them a visual once-over to make sure that the scallops don't have any gnarly-looking discoloration on them, it's a good idea to give them a sniff before you buy. If the shrimp or scallops smell of ammonia, move on to a different purveyor, because that odor is bad news.
Fair warning: Even if the shrimp and scallops are totally fine, you will never wish that you could get their smell in scented-candle form. They smell like what they are—dried raw seafood.
Closeup of dried scallops.
I tested this with three different types of scallops and found that, while the cheapest and smallest scallops don't make the best XO, they still make for a pretty tasty sauce. For my top choice, I settled on nickel-sized scallops that were just a little more expensive than the smallest ones.
Comparison of two types of dried shrimp: the ones on the left are larger.
I came to a similar determination with the dried shrimp, settling on slightly larger ones that pack a lot more flavor than the smaller ones on the right in the photo above. Both dried scallops and shrimp contain a lot of naturally occurring glutamates, which is why they're used as the building blocks of flavor for the sauce, along with the Jinhua-style ham.
Chinese ham for XO sauce.
Unfortunately, true Jinhua ham, from Zhejiang province in China, can't legally be imported to the United States. There are domestically produced hams, sold in Chinese markets, that emulate the style of Jinhua ham. This Jinhua-style ham is similar in texture and saltiness to American country ham, which makes a fine substitute.
I've made XO sauce in restaurants using country ham, prosciutto and serrano scraps, and even high-quality slab bacon. What you're looking for is salty, cured pork flavor, with a hint of smokiness. How you get there can be adjusted to accommodate whatever ingredients are available to you.
The rest of the ingredients can easily be found in a well-stocked supermarket. Soy sauce and oyster sauce provide more backbone to the umami notes in the pork and seafood, while vegetable aromatics and chiles bring freshness and heat to the sauce. Brown sugar, star anise, and Chinese rice wine (also called Shaoxing wine) lend warmth and sweetness, and chicken stock gives the XO some extra meatiness.
Before you begin cooking, you will need to rehydrate the dried seafood, much in the same way as you would dried mushrooms for a risotto, except that here I just reconstitute them in boiling-hot water rather than in stock.
Keep them separate when you soak them, as you will be processing them slightly differently. Make sure to have the scallops in a microwave-safe bowl. Let them hang out in their water baths for at least a couple of hours to soften them up. If you prefer, you can also soak them in cold water in the fridge overnight.
Once they have finished soaking, drain the shrimp completely, and then drain the scallops of all but a couple of tablespoons of water. I then pop a lid on the scallops and steam them in the microwave for a few minutes, until they are fully softened and can easily be broken down into strand-like filaments when you pinch them between your fingers.
Processing rehydrated scallops and shrimp together makes for an overly-chopped texture.
It's now time to break them down into even smaller pieces for the XO sauce. The easiest way to do this is in a food processor.
During initial rounds of testing, I popped both shrimp and scallops in the food processor and buzzed them up into a rough paste together. But that gives you a pet food–like paste that is not ideal, nor very appetizing, as you can see in the photo above. In a good XO sauce, the scallops should be just broken down into thin strands, while the shrimp should be coarsely chopped. These contrasting textures give the sauce dimension; it shouldn't be a pounded paste.
To achieve these textures, you have to process the seafood separately. Start by pulsing the scallops until they are separated into strands, then pulse the shrimp until coarsely chopped.
Processed aromatics, scallops, shrimp, and diced ham in separate bowls for XO sauce.
Finally, process the shallots, garlic, ginger, and fresh chiles until they're finely chopped but, again, not reduced to a paste.
Now it's time to get cooking. XO sauce can be made in either a wok or a large ; use whichever one you have and feel comfortable with.
It's important to use a heavy-bottomed vessel with tall sides, as you will be frying the ingredients in oil, which leads to a lot of bubbling activity. The ingredients will be cooked in stages, to ensure that they're well crisped before they get simmered all together.
Start by crisping the ham, which is minced by hand, in a good amount of vegetable oil. Once the ham has darkened and become crunchy, add the scallops. It's important to keep the ingredients moving by stirring them with a spatula or wooden spoon, making sure that they aren't sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Next go in the shrimp. At this point, the oil will begin to bubble up the sides of the pot. Don't be alarmed, but keep the oil under control. If you feel like there's a chance things might bubble over, turn the heat down a little.
Lifting a spatula full of crispy seafood and ham out of a bubbling pot of oil.
Otherwise, keep stirring and occasionally lifting a spoonful of the mixture out of the pot to check its crisping progress. (The bubbling oil makes it hard to see the bottom of the pot.) Keep cooking and stirring until the shrimp and scallops are golden brown.
The aromatics then get added to the mix. This addition will temper the bubbling situation as the vegetables begin to cook down. Keep stirring to prevent anything from sticking and burning.
Comparison of two versions of XO sauce cooking in a Dutch oven; the left one is pasty and overprocessed as all of the ingredients are cooked at the same time.
While cooking in stages may seem slightly tedious, it's necessary to achieve the proper texture for the XO sauce. In early rounds of testing, I tried adding the aromatics and seafood all at once, and also in quick succession, but this made for a pasty mess that steamed in the pot rather than frying and crisping.
In the photo comparison above, you can see the difference between cooking XO the wrong way (on the left) and the right way (on the right). The method I settled on is actually itself streamlined. Traditionally, all of the ingredients are fried on their own, with each one being removed from the wok before the next component is crisped.
Deglazing XO sauce with Shaoxing rice wine.
Once the vegetables have taken on a golden-brown color, deglaze the pot with Shaoxing.
Adding spices and flavorings to the pot before the final simmering step.
Stir in the remaining ingredients, and cook the XO at a rapid simmer until most of the non-oil liquids have either been evaporated or absorbed into the sauce. The sauce will have thickened to a jam-like consistency, with a layer of clear, bubbling oil on the surface. This oil is packed with flavor, and will also help preserve the sauce during storage, like the oil on top of a jar of chili crisp or pesto.
Bubbles of oil on the surface of a pot of XO.
At this point, all you have to do is cool the XO down and jar it up. Make sure the solids are submerged under the oil in the sauce so that they don't dry out in refrigeration. You now have a killer condiment in your fridge to unleash on dishes of your choosing.
So, What Can I Do With XO Sauce?
Stir-frying Chinese broccoli with XO sauce.
Here on Serious Eats, I've published several full-on recipes incorporating XO sauce, including pasta with burst cherry tomatoes and XO; stir-fried clams with XO; a salad of fresh citrus with XO and Meyer lemon dressing; XOtes (a take on elotes, or Mexican street corn, with XO sauce folded into the usual dressing of crema and mayo); and grilled broccolini with XO.
Spooning XO sauce over a bowl of noodles.
I gave some to Daniel to use as a glaze for his sous vide chicken wings. He then took a jar home and fed some to his toddler. And our ramen aficionado, Sho, used it to come up with an XO mazemen, or soup-less ramen.
It's not hard to find new uses for XO, and I have no doubt we'll be bringing you more recipe applications in the future. In the meantime, make a batch for yourself!
Rehydrating dried shrimp and scallops in two bowls.
Microwave-steaming rehydrated scallops to cook them through and soften them.
Drain scallops of remaining liquid and transfer them to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse scallops 7 times, until just broken into thin strands, then transfer back to their original bowl. Add shrimp to food processor and pulse 10 times, until coarsely chopped. Transfer shrimp back to their original bowl. Finally, combine garlic, shallots, ginger, and Thai chiles in food processor bowl and pulse 12 to 15 times, until finely chopped but not puréed. Set mixture aside.
Processing rehydrated scallops and shrimp separately achieves the proper texture for each.
Crisping ham for XO.
Add scallops to pot and continue to cook, stirring frequently to separate strands, until scallops are lightly golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Add shrimp and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until seafood is a deep golden color, 7 to 10 minutes. The oil in the pot will be very bubbly during this stage, making it difficult to see what is going on in the bottom of the pot, so you will need to occasionally use your spatula or a slotted spoon to pick a spoonful of the mixture up out of the oil to check its color.
Collage of processed scallops and shrimp being fried in hot oil for XO sauce.
Crisping shrimp and scallops in hot oil for XO, then adding aromatics to the pot.
Stir in chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, and star anise and continue to cook at a rapid simmer until mixture is thickened and most of the liquid has been absorbed into the sauce, leaving a thin layer of bubbling oil on the surface of the pot, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Once XO sauce has cooled, divide into jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. Bring to room temperature before using.
Finishing cooking the XO sauce.
Country ham, serrano, or even bacon can be substituted for Jinhua ham. As with cutting bacon or guanciale, placing the ham in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes before working with it makes it easier to cut.
Thai chiles are very spicy. For a milder condiment, you can either use less of them or omit the ground dried chiles entirely.
Dry sherry can be substituted for Shaoxing wine.
XO sauce can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one month. For storing, make sure to keep the solids in the sauce submerged in the oil, so that they don't dry out.