Sambal Oelek Recipe (3 Ingredients)

What is Sambal Oelek?

Sambal oelek is a rustic, ground up chilli paste made with fresh red chillies, salt and some sort of acid, either vinegar or lime juice.

At its very basic, it would have just chillies and salt. The acid lends tartness and also prolongs its life.

The sambal oelek that the West is mad about usually contains these 3 ingredients. It’s basic, it’s rustic and makes the perfect foundation for creating hot sauces and perhaps even more elaborate sambals and condiments.

So what does Sambal Oelek Mean?

If you’ve been a long time follower of LinsFood, whether here or through my other blog, SMR, you’ll know what the word sambal means. It’s a Malay and Indonesian word that has no direct English translation. Aka sambol, in Sri Lanka.

Sambal can be a condiment or a side dish, and it’s usually spicy. So we can have:

• sambal belacan (terasi in Indonesian) – shrimp paste condiment
• sambal mangga – spicy mango condiment (on SMR)
• sambal goreng – a side dish of tempeh and vegetables (on SMR)

And so on. Click on the links above to get the individual recipes. 

The word oelek is the Dutch version of the Indonesian word ulek, which means to grind. So sambal oelek simply means a sambal that’s been ground up. Much like pestare means to pound or crush, giving you the Italian pesto.

So technically, any sambal made with a pestle and mortar or silbatta is sambal oelek, no matter what it contains. And you do get variations of it, because grind the chillies plus anything, you have sambal oelek!

Authentic sambal oelek, in keeping with its name, is made with a mortar and pestle, which in Indonesian is cobek dan ulekan. The Indonesian mortar is shallow and has a fairly flat bowl with an offset pestle, see image below.

• Cobek = mortar
• dan = and
• ulekan = pestle (as in the thing that grinds)

So now you know.

Homemade Sambal Oelek

For the purposes of today’s recipe and article, we’re going to make the basic sambal oelek that only contains the 3 ingredients mentioned above and that is found sold in jars everywhere. You could, if you really, really wanted, add a small clove of garlic to the mix. But that’s it.

No lemongrass, no ginger, no cumin, basically no spices of any kind. Our sambal oelek from scratch is going to be the streamlined version you find sold in jars, minus the preservatives.

All we’ll be doing is grinding up the chillies with some salt. We finish it off by adding a little vinegar or lime juice.

Can you use a Food Processor?

Absolutely. You can use a food processor to make sambal oelek. Or a food chopper or a blender, whatever rocks your boat. In fact, if you’re making a big batch, you’re probably better off using one of these modern contraptions.

You know me and food processors – we’re best mates.

Ingredients

As mentioned, we only need 3 ingredients to make our sambal oelek, or sambal ulek, as it would be spelt in Indonesia. The ratio of chillies to salt to acid (vinegar/lime juice) is also very fluid. Use more chillies, less chillies, without changing up the other 2 ingredients – it really doesn’t matter.

1. fresh red chillies
2. salt
3. vinegar or lime juice (but not both at the same time, because, why?)

Chillies

Sambal oelek uses fresh red chillies, unlike this other basic, Red Chilli Paste recipe. It is an uncooked sambal that retains all its fresh raw flavour after being prepared.

Whatever red chillies you have at hand, or love, is perfectly fine to make sambal oelek. Naturally, the hotter your chilli, the hotter your sambal.

I always use a combination of something mild like jalapeňos or serranos and a birds eye type chilli. This is completely up to you.

Salt

Any regular salt, ideally coarse, will do for our sambal today, but not table salt, with its additives. Coarse salt will help the chillies grind easier.

Vinegar or Lime Juice

Vinegar or lime juice adds a little tartness to our sambal oelek, and also helps it last longer in the fridge, when made fresh.

Whether you use vinegar or lime juice is purely a matter of preference. Don’t use them together though because they do the same job in terms of flavour and function. The vinegar will give you a neutral chilli paste, while the lime juice will leave a citrus aroma in this red chilli paste. I’m using rice vinegar, but you can use any clear type.

Sambal Oelek Substitute

Really folks, you don’t actually need a substitute for sambal oelek, because it’s only chillies, salt and vinegar. Don’t bother hunting down the aisles for another chilli sauce or hot sauce like sriracha to mimic the taste.

The best sambal oelek substitute is just chopped up fresh red chillies. Because that’s what sambal oelek is, chopped up red chillies. Add a little vinegar and a pinch of salt to it and you’ve got speedy sambal oelek.

How to Use Sambal Oelek

Sambal oelek can be used in so many different ways, many of them you’ll know from all our previous chilli recipes.

Here are just some examples of how to use it:

• its #1 use is as a cooking ingredient when a recipe calls for chillies or chilli paste
• add it to your usual marinades for a hit of spice
• as a base to make sriracha sauce or any other hot sauce or chilli sauce
• add a little to stews, soups and curries to jazz them up
• use it as part of spice pastes in Asian dishes, whether in stir-fries or any kind of noodle dishes
• you could also add it to salad dressings

If truth be told, there are so many ways to use sambal oelek, you’re only restricted by your imagination.