Easy Plum Sauce Recipe

This plum sauce is a pan sauce for duck and game, not the sweet jarred stuff from the takeaway. I first made it at the chef academy and have tweaked it since. Ripe plums and an apricot are cooked down with stock, mirin and vinegar into something glossy and sharp, closer to a classical fruit sauce than to anything Chinese, and it is built to cut through rich, fatty meat.

It is a versatile one to have in the fridge. Spoon it over roast duck, grilled chicken or pork chops, or use it as a dip for spring rolls. It is also lovely alongside noodle dishes like my Wuhan Hot Dry Noodles.

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What Meats Can You Use This Plum Sauce For?

This is a sauce built for rich meat, and the sharpness is the whole point of it: fruit and vinegar against fat. Duck and game are what it was made for, and it will do a good deal more besides:

• Duck: the one I make it for. Duck is fatty and faintly sweet already, and the sharpness in the sauce is what stops a whole roast leg feeling heavy by the third mouthful.
• Venison: the other one I make it for, and the reason this recipe exists in the form it does. Venison is lean, dark and faintly livery, and a fruit sauce is the classical answer to all three. Good with a roast haunch, and very good with pan-fried loin.
• Game birds: pheasant, partridge and pigeon all take it well, and it is especially useful with pheasant, which dries out easily and wants something to bring it back.
• Turkey: genuinely useful, because turkey breast is lean and dries easily. A spoonful of this does the job gravy would, with more character.
• Pork: the natural second choice after duck. Belly or shoulder rather than tenderloin, if you have the option, since the fat is what the sauce is there to answer.
• Chicken: thighs rather than breast, and better still if the skin has gone properly crisp under the grill. Brush it on in the last few minutes rather than at the start or the sugar will catch.
• Lamb: less obvious and worth trying. Lamb takes fruit well, and a slow-cooked shoulder or shank with this spooned over is closer to a Middle Eastern plate than a Chinese one.

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Different Types of Plums for Your Plum Sauce

Any plum will make a decent sauce, so do not go hunting. But they are not interchangeable, and if you have a choice at the market it is worth knowing what each one gives you:

• Greengage Plums: Sweet with a hint of tartness, soft and juicy. Creates a delicate, sweet sauce, perfect for lamb or chicken.
• Black Plums: Sweet with slightly tart skin, juicy texture. Great for a sweet, rich sauce to pair with pork or chicken.
• Red Plums: Sweet flesh with tart skin, balanced flavour. Adds a tangy kick, perfect for duck or lamb dishes.
• Yellow Plums (Mirabelle): Very sweet with a honey-like taste, firm texture. Ideal for a sweeter sauce, great with poultry or as a dessert topping.
• Damson Plums: Tart and slightly bitter, firm flesh. Best for a tangier, complex sauce that complements richer meats like duck or pork.
• Santa Rosa Plums: Balanced sweet and tart flavour, juicy flesh. Versatile for any meat; an all-around great choice.

How to Make Slow-Cooked Duck Legs to Pair with Plum Sauce

Slow-cooked duck legs are a perfect match for my plum sauce. Simply brown the duck legs and vegetables, then transfer them to your slow cooker with herbs, spices, and stock. Cook on high for 3 hours until the meat is tender and flavourful. The rich, savoury duck pairs beautifully with the tangy sweetness of the plum sauce.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Vegetable stock instead of beef The swap most people will want, and it works. You lose some of the savoury weight that makes this a pan sauce rather than a jam, so lift it back with a splash of soy or a small piece of dried mushroom in the pan. Chicken stock sits between the two.
• Mirin Dry sherry with a pinch of sugar is the closest thing most kitchens have. Rice vinegar with a little sugar also works, though you then want less of the red wine vinegar later. At a push, apple juice.
• The apricot It is there for a honeyed note the plums do not give on their own. Another plum will do if you have none, and a nectarine is closer still. Do not use tinned, which brings syrup you cannot then balance.
• Red wine vinegar Rice vinegar is the more Chinese choice and makes a cleaner, sharper sauce. Cider vinegar is fine. Balsamic is not: it is sweet and it will push the whole thing the wrong way.
• Star anise A small pinch of Chinese five-spice, added at the end rather than simmered, gets you to a similar place. Use less than you think, because five-spice carries pepper as well as anise.
• Brown sugar Honey or maple syrup both work, and both are sweeter by volume than sugar, so start with less and taste. Honey also thickens the sauce slightly as it cools.

How to Make Plum Sauce, Step by Step

The card below has the quantities and the timings. This is the same method with the reasoning attached, and one step in it matters far more than the rest.

1. Warm the olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and soften the shallot for about five minutes, until it is translucent and sweet. You want it soft rather than coloured. This is a pan sauce rather than a jam, so the shallot is doing the same job it would in any other sauce base, and rushing it leaves a raw oniony edge that the fruit will not cover.
2. Stir in the brown sugar and let it dissolve, then add the plum and apricot wedges and keep stirring until the melted sugar coats the fruit. Leave the skins on. They carry most of the colour and a good deal of the tartness, and peeling costs you volume for nothing. Worth knowing that plums vary enormously, anywhere from about 40 g to 100 g each, so if you want the same sauce twice, weigh them: two ripe plums and an apricot comes to roughly 200 to 250 g of fruit.
3. Pour in the beef stock, the mirin and the red wine vinegar, then add the star anise and the orange slices. The mirin and the orange are my own additions and they are what stop this tasting like a sweet-and-sour sauce out of a bottle: the mirin brings a gentle sweetness with body behind it, and the orange lifts the whole thing. Leave the star anise and the orange whole rather than chopping them, so you can fish them out later.
4. Bring it down to a medium-low heat and simmer for about fifteen minutes, stirring now and then, until the fruit has collapsed and the sauce has thickened. Two things to hold in your head here. It will thicken further as it cools, so stop while it still looks a shade loose, and if you want it smooth rather than rustic you can blend it or mash it with a fork at this point instead of simmering it down harder. Reducing further concentrates the sugar as well as the flavour, which is not always what you want.
5. Fish out the star anise and the orange slices if you want a cleaner sauce, or leave them in and serve around them. There is no right answer. I usually take the star anise out, because it keeps getting stronger the longer it sits, and leave the orange in if the sauce is going straight to the table.
6. Now taste it, and this is the step that matters most. If it tastes like ketchup, which is the single most common complaint about home-made plum sauce, the problem is almost never the fruit: it is the balance of sugar against vinegar. Add vinegar a teaspoon at a time until it tastes sharp and fruity rather than merely sweet. A pinch of salt does more than you expect here, and a little more sugar will round it off if your plums were very tart.
7. Take it off the heat once the consistency and the balance are where you want them. It is good warm straight away, and honestly better after a few hours in the fridge, once the star anise and orange have had time to settle into it. Cool it quickly and refrigerate rather than leaving the pan out.

Recipe Card for Plum Sauce

What to Serve With Plum Sauce

Duck first: spoon it over roast duck legs or a pan-fried breast, or brush it on as a glaze for the last few minutes under the grill. It does the same for venison, pheasant and pigeon, and for slow-cooked pork belly. Beyond the roasting tin it is good on a cheese board next to something hard and salty, and if there is a jarful left over it will happily stand in as a dip for crispy seafood spring rolls or anything else crisp, though that is a bonus rather than the point of it.

Variations

• Roast the fruit first A genuinely different sauce rather than a tweak. Roast the plums, the apricot and the shallot at a high heat until they are collapsed and browned at the edges, then blend them with the liquids and simmer only briefly. Deeper, jammier and less fresh-tasting. Worth doing if the oven is already on.
• Smooth rather than rustic Fish out the star anise and blend the lot before you finish it. This is what most Chinese-style plum sauces do. Pass it through a sieve afterwards if you want it glossy.
• Make it more of a condiment If what you actually want is the jarred takeaway sort, take the stock right down or leave it out, double the fruit and push the vinegar up. That gives you a thick, sharp dipping sauce rather than a pan sauce. It is a different recipe, but the same idea.
• More heat A dried chilli or a pinch of flakes in with the star anise. The sweetness carries chilli well and it stops the sauce feeling one-note beside plain roast meat.

Storing, Freezing and Reheating

Three or four days in the fridge in a clean covered jar, and up to three months in the freezer. Cool it quickly and get it in there rather than leaving the pan on the hob to come down in its own time.

It freezes better than most sauces because there is no dairy in it and nothing to split. Portion it into an ice cube tray if you tend to want a spoonful at a time rather than a jarful. Reheat gently in a small pan, and loosen it with a splash of water if it has set firmer than you want, which it will.

Do not put it in jars for the cupboard. The stock in it makes this a low-acid sauce, and no amount of vinegar makes that safe to water-bath can. The freezer is the answer, and it is a better one anyway.

The card makes roughly 300 ml, which is about right as a sauce for four. If you have a glut of plums, it doubles and triples without any trouble at all, though a bigger pan of it will want a few minutes longer to reduce. Weigh the fruit rather than counting it if you are scaling up, because plums vary from about 40 g to 100 g each.

FAQ for Plum Sauce

What is plum sauce used for?

There are two different sauces sharing the name. The one most people picture is the sweet Chinese condiment sold in jars and served as a dip. This is the other sort: a European-style pan sauce, built on stock and reduced down, made to go with rich meat rather than to sit in a jar. Use it with duck, venison, game birds, pork or lamb.

What plums work best?

Ripe, slightly tart plums. Any variety works - taste and balance the sweetness with vinegar and sugar.

How long does homemade plum sauce keep?

Three or four days in the fridge, in a clean covered jar, and it freezes very well for up to three months. You may see much longer figures quoted for plum sauce, and they are correct for the vinegar-and-sugar version, which is essentially a preserve. This one is not: it carries 300 ml of stock against 30 ml of vinegar, so treat it like any other cooked pan sauce. Cool it quickly and get it into the fridge rather than leaving it to stand on the hob.

Can I make it less sweet?

Yes - adjust the sugar and add a little more vinegar, or a pinch of five-spice for balance.

Can you can plum sauce to make it shelf-stable?

Not this one. This sauce is built on beef stock, which makes it a low-acid food containing meat, and a sauce like that cannot be made shelf-stable in a boiling water bath at any vinegar level. Adding more vinegar does not fix it. Keep this one in the fridge for a few days or freeze it. The canning advice you will find elsewhere applies to the other sort of plum sauce, the fruit, sugar and vinegar condiment with no stock in it: those are water-bath canned to a tested recipe from Ball, Bernardin or a university extension service, and even then you follow the recipe exactly rather than adapting one.

Can I use frozen or under-ripe plums?

Both work. Thaw frozen plums first and expect extra juice, so simmer a little longer to reduce and hold back some of the sugar. Under-ripe, tart plums are actually great here - they bring a lovely tang - and cooking them down with sugar softens the sharpness. Taste as you go and balance the sweetness at the end.

How do you thicken or thin plum sauce?

To thicken, simmer it uncovered for longer to reduce, mash in an extra plum, or stir in a small cornstarch slurry (about 1 tsp cornstarch to 1 tbsp water) and cook briefly until glossy. Remember it firms up as it cools, so stop while it is still a touch loose. To thin it back down, whisk in a splash of water, rice vinegar or a little soy sauce until it pours the way you want.

Is plum sauce the same as hoisin or duck sauce?

Not quite. Plum sauce is fruit-based, sweet-and-sour and jammy. Hoisin is a different thing altogether - dark, salty and savoury, made from fermented soybeans - so it is not a straight swap. “Duck sauce”, though, is basically the same family as plum sauce: a sweet fruit dip served with duck and takeaway favourites.

Do I need to peel the plums first?

No - leave the skins on. As the sauce simmers, the skins soften and all but dissolve, and they add colour and a little natural pectin that helps it thicken. If you blend the sauce at the end you will not notice them at all. Only bother straining if you want an ultra-smooth, jelly-like finish.

Why is my plum sauce less sweet than the shop-bought jar?

Because it is the real thing. Homemade fresh-plum sauce is meant to be tangy and savoury, while the bright jarred “plum sauce” or “duck sauce” is usually loaded with extra sugar (and often thickened with apricot or pumpkin), so it tastes much sweeter and smoother. If yours seems sharp, let it rest a day in the fridge - the flavour mellows and deepens overnight - and stir in a little more sugar at the end until it is balanced to your taste.

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A Few Words from the Chef

I made this for the first time at the chef academy, and it is one of the few things from back then that I still cook more or less the way I was taught, give or take my own tweaks. The mirin and the orange are mine. It is the sauce I reach for whenever there is duck or venison in the kitchen, and it takes fifteen minutes, which is the other reason I keep coming back to it. If you make it, leave a comment and tell me what you served it with.