I have been craving for Malaysian cuisines with sambal sauce but there is just hardly any authentic Malaysian restaurants in Florida. So I am going to play with the core ingredients to make my own sambal belacan sauce.

Core ingredients of Malaysian sambal belacan sauce include the following:

• Hot peppers
• Aromatics
• Belacan
• Sweeteners
• Sour element
• Unami seasoning

Below is the actual ingredients I am using for this pictorial step by step recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound hot chili peppers from my fall 2026 harvest which is a combination of Snow White Habanero, Dual White Thai, Bushy White Thai, and Indian White Kanthari chili peppers
• 5 shallots minced
• 1 garlic bulb minced
• 8 Tbsp minced lemongrass
• 1/2 cup “Shrimp Paste with Soybean Oil”
• 8 pieces palm sugar
• 2/3 cup distilled vinegar
• 1/2 cup Viet Huong Fish Sauce
• 1 Tbsp pink salt
• 1 cup premium grade Louisiana dried shrimp
• 1 cup avocado oil

Note: I ordered my dried Louisiana shrimp from Taylor Pham on Facebook.

Prepping Direction:

1. I blended one pound of my homegrown mixed chili peppers with two-thirds distilled vinegar. The vinegar acts as the sour ingredient. I could use calomondin juice as a substitute but using vinegar will allow me to preserve this sauce much longer.

2. I used the Cuisenart chopper to finely minced the shallots, garlic, and ginger together.

3. I rondelle chop the lemongrass stalks before mincing it in the Cuisenart chopper. The minced lemongrass fills up about a cup.

4. Lastly, I blended the dried shrimp in the Cuisenart chopper. Then I transfer the finely minced dried shrimp onto a bowl. I added half a cup of the Shrimp Paste With Soybean Oil with the minced dried shrimp and mix the two together well.

I am ready to cook this sambal belacan sauce!

Cooking Direction:

1. First, I heat up half a cup of avocado oil in my 14-inch Hexclad wok. Once the oil is hot, I pour in the aromatic mixture. I cook the aromatics for five minutes on high heat before adding the blended peppers.

2. I pour in half a cup of avocado oil. Then I stir the ingredients up. I added a cup of water into.the Vitamix Blender and shake it around so that the remaining pepper paste can blend into the water. I pour that mixture into the wok and stir until the mixture is blended. I cook the sauce on a light simmering boil for ten minutes.

3. Finally, I added about 8 pieces of the pure toddy palm sugar, half a cup of Viet Hương fish sauce, one tablespoon of pink salt, and the shrimp mixture. Stir all ingredients until well blended.

Cook on medium low heat for ten last minutes.

Make sure to stand there by the stove to constantly stir the mixture and make sure to break or smash down the palm sugar as it softens up so that it melts faster.

Now I just need to waste for this sambal sauce to cool down before I can pour it into airtight glass jars and store it in the fridge. This is how many small jars of sauce this recipe batch makes.

Oh I am excited to show off my future Malaysian stir fry cuisines using my homemade sambal belacan sauce.

Review: Holy cow! That one pound of my homegrown hot peppers are too hot for me. I think I will use just half a pound of mixed hot peppers and keep the other ingredients the same for my next batch. 😆