This quick sambal oelek takes only a few minutes to make. If you don't have fresh chillies, see the notes for how to substitute fresh chillies with dried chile or red pepper flakes for an easy sambal oelek substitute.
Servings3 tablespoons
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 ounces red chillies *
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Remove the stems from the chillies and roughly chop them.
- Grind the chopped chillies, rice vinegar and salt into a coarse paste using a mortar and pestle (molcajete) or a small food processor. If you don't have either, simply dice the chillies very finely and mix them with the rest of the ingredients.
- Refrigerate your sambal oelek in a clean airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
Notes
- The best type of chile pepper for sambal oelek has juicy flesh with few seeds and moderate heat. Try it with red jalapeño or red serrano peppers. You can mix in some Thai bird's eye chillies. But when you use only Thai chillies the resulting sambal oelek is insanely hot with too many seeds – best to remove some seeds if you're brave enough to use only bird's eye (I'm not, at least not again!).
- If you don't have fresh chillies, you can make a sambal oelek substitute by rehydrating dried chile or crushed red pepper flakes. Soak dried chilli peppers in hot water. Then drain the water and blend the rehydrated chillies with rice vinegar and salt. See sambal oelek substitute for step-by-step instructions.
- See the full post for more sambal oelek substitutes you may already have around the house.