Easy Chamoy Sauce Recipe - ¡HOLA! JALAPEÑO

Jump to Recipe

Homemade Chamoy sauce is a thing of beauty. This perfect mix of sweet, salty, sour, and spicy is an explosion of flavor and completely addictive. Drizzle over fresh fruit, rim your cocktail glass, heck, eat it with a spoon! I guarantee you’ll find a million and one reasons to make this chamoy recipe. Vegan and gluten-free! Watch the 60 second video.

TABLE OF CONTENTS show what is chamoy sauce? What is Chamoy Made Of? how to make chamoy step one step two step three step four what to serve with chamoy? Top 5 Most Popular Dessert Recipes: be prepared to have your mind blown Easy Chamoy Sauce Recipe Ingredients Instructions Notes Recommended Products Did you make this recipe? You Might Also Like

Recipe first posted August 26, 2021. Last updated October 12, 2023 with new recipe notes and text.

If you could wrap the spirit of Mexican cuisine in one food, it would be chamoy.

Chamoy tastes like a fruity chile sauce. It’s salty, spicy, sweet, sour and all of those flavors are at their maximum level. It is exuberant, flashy, and unapologetically bold—basically everything I love about Mexican food.

You most commonly find this sour sauce served as the ultimate Mexican snack at fruit stands drizzled over fruit cups full of fresh mango, watermelon, cucumbers, and jicama. It also graces other sweet street food like paletas (popsicles), raspados (shaved ice), and helados (ice cream).

It has a really interesting history too, let’s take a closer look!

what is chamoy sauce?

Chamoy sauce is a Mexican sauce made from ingredients that represent all the flavors on the palate: Sweet dried apricots, spicy chile de arbol, salty Tajin seasoning, and sour hibiscus flowers.

Where you find Chamoy you also usually find Tajin seasoning but they are not the same thing. Tajín is a brand of chili-lime salt and is an ingredient in this Chamoy Sauce recipe. The Tajin brand also makes a mild hot sauce but it is not the same as Chamoy. It is straight up hot sauce, not sweet at all where Chamoy is sweet and sour and spicy and salty. That being said, they also make a Chamoy Sauce but I believe homemade is best.

According to food historian, Rachel Laudan, Chinese immigrants brought sweet, sour snacks made from Prunus mume or Ume plum, a fruit similar to an apricot when they came to Mexico centuries ago. It is the same fruit used to make Japanese Umeboshi.

In Cantonese these snacks were called see mui, pronounced see moy, which eventually became cha-moy in spanish.

Chamoy is also sold as popular Mexican wet or dried plums (wet in the sauce, and dried coated in powder) as well as numerous Mexican candies (the best are the gummy candies—yum!), but the sauce is my favorite, and the easiest one to make at home!

What is Chamoy Made Of?

There are loads of Mexican chamoy hot sauces you can find at most Latin grocery stores. The main difference between store bought and homemade is most of the ones at the store are made of ingredients you can’t pronounce like xanthan gum, let alone know what they are.

Lucky for us, chamoy is incredibly easy to make, with less than 10 simple ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Dried Flor de Jamaica. Also known as hibiscus flowers, these add that hit of sourness. It’s that secret ingredient that gives chamoy great flavor.
• Dried Fruit. Getting the original Prunus mume fruit is a bit challenging, therefore, we’re going to use sweet dried apricots and raisins instead for the base of the chamoy.
• Chile de árbol. These dried chile peppers add that essential spicy kick. You can substitute ancho chile if you want a more mild sauce.
• Granulated sugar. Here comes the sweet.
• Tajín. This chile powder with dehydrated lime and sea salt gives us an extra punch of spicy, sour, and salt.
• Lime juice and salt.

how to make chamoy

step one

Simmer fruit. First combine jamaica or dried hibiscus flowers with dried apricots, raisins, árbol chiles, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook until fruit is softened, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

You can adjust the heat level by using more or less chiles de árbol.

step two

Blend. Blend in a blender with sugar and Tajín chili powder until it is a very, very smooth thick sauce.

step three

Strain. Pass this mixture through a sieve to make is pourable and silky (you can skip this step if you want).

step four

Add lime and salt. Mix in lime juice and a bit more salt and that’s it! Taste and add more if desired to create that perfect balance.

what to serve with chamoy?

• Mangonada {Spicy Mango Smoothie} AKA Chamoyadas
• Drizzle over ripe fruits like fresh apricots, pineapple, melon, or your favorite fruit
• Use as a rim dip and shake up a Spicy Jalapeño Michelada
• Top cups of Pineapple Soft Serve with chamoy
• Blackberry-Hibiscus Sorbet deserves a dribble of chamoy

Top 5 Most Popular Dessert Recipes:

1. Molasses Banana Bread
2. 12 S’Mores Combinations That Will Blow Your Mind
3. Strawberry Tamales with Horchata Sauce
4. Soft Ricotta Banana Bread
5. Chocoflan

be prepared to have your mind blown

If you’ve only ever had the bottled chamoy sauce—or have never had chamoy sauce at all, get ready for an out of body experience. Show me what you put it on by snapping a pic and tagging me on Instagram @holajalapeno and #holajalapeno so I can see or leave me a comment below (don’t forget to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating) ! Also, make sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter, lots of good stuff there too!

Continue to Content

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 6 ounces (about 1 scant cup) dried apricots
• 1/4 cup dried hibiscus (jamaica) flowers 
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 7 dried árbol chiles, stemmed and seeded
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup Tajín
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 1 lime)
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

1. Simmer fruit. Combine water, dried apricots, hibiscus flowers, raisins, and chiles in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cover. Let simmer gently until fruit is soft and plump, about 15 minutes. Let cool.
2. Blend. Pour fruit mixture in the blender. Add sugar and Tajín and blend on high until very smooth.
3. Strain. Strain through a fine mesh sieve to make it pourable and silky (this is optional).
4. Add lime juice and salt. Stir in lime juice and salt and enjoy!

Notes

1. Storage: Keep chamoy covered in the refrigerator for up to a month.
2. Heat Level: This sauce is not very spicy but to make it more mild, use less arbol chiles or substitute ancho chiles for the arbol chiles.
3. Straining Step: Straining the sauce is optional but it creates a smoother, more pourable sauce. It's worth the extra set to get that silky consistency.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• Anolon Advanced Hard Anodized Nonstick Sauce Pan
• Oster Blender 
• Hibiscus Flowers, Flor de Jamaica

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 14 Serving Size: 1 Amount Per Serving: Calories: 1Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 1mgCarbohydrates: 0gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 0g

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

In support of this small business, ¡Hola! Jalapeño earns revenue in a few different ways. Several sponsored posts are published each month. I also earn an affiliate commission on the sales of products I link to— there are a few of those links in this post. I only feature items I genuinely love and personally use on a regular basis. This commission is an arrangement between the retailer and ¡Hola! Jalapeño (readers never pay more for products). This income allows me to run the site. Thank you for reading!

You Might Also Like

• How To Make A Mangonada
• Mexican Rarebit
• 12 Spicy Chile de Árbol Recipes
• Mexican Wedding Cookies {Gluten-Free, Vegan}