Stop Eating Fried Chicken Plain — Dunk It In This Sauce For 10x The Flavor

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Aside from doing everything you can to create the perfect fried chicken, you may also want to add a sauce to boost its flavor. In the Philippines, street-style fried chicken — aka KFC or kanto fried chicken — is dunked in a cane vinegar concoction. The tanginess melts into the savoriness of the chicken, making it taste light yet bold. 

There can be different interpretations of the sauce, but their common denominator is the spiced vinegar flavor. The cane vinegar should be the dominant ingredient by volume. If you don't have access to cane vinegar, you can swap it with white vinegar, which has similar acidity. You should also add around half a tablespoon of diced onion and sliced cucumber, and even just a small piece of minced chili works wonders. Many Filipino dishes have mild heat, after all.  Salt and sugar are sprinkled into the sauce for added depth. Soy sauce addition is welcome, but when recreating this at home, it might be better to find a Filipino brand like Datu Puti, as Filipino soy sauce tends to have a saltier punch. I remember growing up and seeing my uncles add Knorr Liquid Seasoning to the sauce instead, which is a bit like soy sauce, but bolder.

These ingredients are combined in a small sauce bowl — or a Mason jar if you're making a big batch — so there's no need to cook anything. It's best to let the vinegar soak up the flavors from the other ingredients for around three days before using it. This mellows the sharpness of the condiment.

The spiced vinegar, which called "sawsawan," or "dipping sauce," is a great representation of the Filipino palate. It's a nation obsessed with vinegar, so much so that it's featured in a lot of dishes, like pork adobo. But if you find the vinegar flavor on your sawsawan is too strong, try mellowing it with a dash of sugar. Siling labuyo is often used in the dipping sauce for a fiery flavor, but you can also opt for Thai chili. Siling haba, or long chili, can also be added to the condiment for extra heat and aromatics. Stir red onion to the sauce to create its signature color, or stick with white onions. The sawsawan is best used on fried chicken that contains a hint of citrus, which is the backbone of Filipino KFC, alongside soy sauce. 

The sawsawan can also be used in other dishes, like lumpia. Personally, I love dipping fried fish into the sauce, and — don't judge me — pouring a generous amount onto my rice. But if we're talking about street food, kwek kwek (quail eggs covered in orange batter) and sawsawan are a glorious pairing. Don't get me wrong; Filipinos also love sweet banana ketchup on fried chicken, and it would be a disservice to the whole community if I didn't mention that. But the spiced vinegar sauce also deserves the spotlight, as it's a potent, lively flavoring that elevates savory chicken.