XO sauce

A modern condiment, not one formula

XO sauce (XO醬) is a Hong Kong condiment whose name borrows the prestige of XO cognac. The Michelin Guide accounts describe a savoury, oily mixture built around dried scallop and dried shrimp, with chilli, garlic and shallot, and sometimes Jinhua ham, salted fish or shrimp roe. The cognac reference explains the name; cognac is not a required ingredient.

The documented methods cook the aromatics and seafood in oil rather than fermenting the finished sauce. The condiment is served as a table relish or dip, and it seasons noodles and cooked dishes. Versions differ in their seafood, ham and oil, and no single standard formula exists. Any recipe built from these accounts is one example among several.

Origins remain disputed

Accounts of who first made or named XO sauce remain disputed. Michelin reports that chefs are guarded about the origin, and its later feature links the name to the cognac grade and to the sauce’s spread from high-end Hong Kong restaurants into other eateries and shops. Ming Pao Weekly’s retrospective sets out several proposed episodes, including Han Peizhu in the 1970s, Lee Yuen in 1981 and the Peninsula hotel’s Spring Moon in 1986, and says the competing versions are difficult to verify.

These accounts document the growth of the sauce in Hong Kong dining culture. They do not establish a definitive inventor or first restaurant, so the dates here are reported claims, not settled chronology.

The home method

The batch recorded here is the Hang Heung home version, which yields about 250 to 300 g from 50 g of dried scallop, 20 g of dried shrimp, 25 g of Jinhua ham, 15 g each of garlic and shallot, 10 g of dried chilli and 150 mL of peanut oil. Huadiao wine (40 mL) and one to two tablespoons each of soy sauce and oyster sauce are listed as the seasoning, with no step saying when they go in. The scallop is soaked overnight in cold water until soft and then shredded, and the ham is diced coarsely enough to keep some chew.

The order of frying matters. The oil goes in hot, about 200 °C, and the shallot and garlic are fried for about eight minutes over high heat until golden and dry. Then the heat comes down, the shredded scallop and the dried shrimp go in until they smell fragrant, and the chilli and ham follow for about five minutes, until the oil bubbles. The ingredient list calls for dried chilli while the method step names bird's-eye chilli, so the two do not agree and the dried chilli is kept here. Everything is cooked in oil; nothing is fermented.

The sauce is packed hot into a pre-sterilised glass jar, solids first and oil on top, and pressed down so the oil covers them. The author's buying advice is to choose Japanese dried scallop for extra sweetness, small whole dried shrimp that stay visible in the finished sauce, and a three-year Zhejiang Jinhua ham.

Two published home versions

Two Hong Kong food-company pages publish home versions that differ from each other. The Hang Heung batch above is the smaller. The second, from Koon Wah, lists about 150 g of scallop, 100 g of ham and 50 g of dried shrimp, with 500 mL of oil, onions, garlic, chilli powder, black pepper, yellow wine, oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar. Its scallop and shrimp are soaked, the scallop and ham are steamed for 15 minutes, and the ingredients are fried in stages over medium-low heat before the seafood returns to the oil with the seasoning. It gives no finished yield, and one oil quantity in its method is written in shorthand that cannot be read as an amount. The two examples are not one formula, and neither is a validated production standard, so they should not be combined.

Storage and safety

The Hang Heung page says an unopened jar keeps at room temperature for about two to three weeks and an opened jar, kept refrigerated, for about half a year, and asks for a clean, dry utensil each time. Koon Wah says to leave a sealed jar three to five days at room temperature before opening and to refrigerate it once opened. Neither claim is backed by a batch-specific preservation study, and the sources reviewed do not establish a shelf-stable process. The oil, seafood and aromatic content would need checking before any keeping period is adopted.

General home-preservation guidance from an extension service is not a validated XO process, and this page does not use it as one. Commercial XO sauces vary in their ingredients and allergen declarations. One manufacturer product in the Michelin-linked material is listed with crustacea, fish, soybean and wheat, so the label of any product should be checked before use.

What the sources do not give

The sources reviewed do not give a validated formula, a tested storage time or a safe shelf life, and they do not establish the inventor of the sauce. This page leaves those points open rather than filling them from one product or one home recipe.