Lychee Sweet Chilli Sauce

Mild, milder than a standard Thai sweet chilli dipping sauce, and built for the whole table rather than for chilli enthusiasts. There's warmth and a gentle tingle, but the lychee and the sweetness lead.

One thing worth knowing: the colour doesn't come from the chilli. In a mild sauce there's nowhere near enough chilli to make it red, so the depth of colour comes from red capsicum, a little tomato paste and sweet paprika. Deep red doesn't mean hot.

You can taste it. Lychee brings a floral, almost muscat-like sweetness that's completely different from the plain sugar sweetness in most sweet chilli sauces, and it sits particularly well with garlic, ginger and lime. It's the reason we made it.

Neither. Many sweet chilli sauces lean on fish sauce for savoury depth or soy sauce for colour and salt. Ours uses neither, and carries no declarable allergens at all.

It's vegan, no fish sauce, no animal ingredients. On gluten, there's no gluten ingredient in it (no soy sauce, no malt vinegar), but please see our note on gluten claims in the general FAQ before relying on that: in Australia the words 'gluten free' are a laboratory claim and we won't print them on a jar we haven't tested.

Generally yes. It's genuinely mild and most children take to it happily. Every child is different though, so start with a small amount.

A small amount of xanthan gum, declared on the label as Thickener (Xanthan Gum).

We're upfront about it because the alternative is worse. Getting that texture by reduction alone means boiling the sauce far longer, and every extra minute in the pan costs colour and fresh lychee flavour. A fraction of a percent of a plant-derived gum does the job in seconds and leaves the fruit tasting like fruit.

Lychee browns naturally. It's the single biggest technical challenge in making a lychee sauce and we've worked hard on it. Some deepening over a long shelf life is normal in a product with no artificial colour. Flavour and safety are unaffected.