I've made this recipe twice. The trick to getting it to not taste so much like cherry is to add 1/4 cup of ketchup, or a little more if you prefer. My mom worked at a chinese restaurant and is the one who told me I was missing ketchup bcuz that's hwo they made it. Also, by personal preference I used crushed pinneapple w/juice and cheeries w/the juice and pureed/liquified it together in a magic bullet. It tasted so much like the restaurant style sweet and sour once I made the few adjustments! Very good!
Sparkler, I think you are my new best friend. I am a sweet and sour fanatic, and have always always ALWAYS wanted a recipe that was restaurant quality, and this is definitely it! All I ever did differently was replace 2 tbsp cherry juice with 2 tbsp ketchup. I think I've made this 20 times or so, and now my whole family won't even go out for chinese anymore, they call me instead! By the way, no matter what you do, DO NOT FORGET TO COMBINE THE CORNSTARCH AND WATER!!! You will end up with a runny sauce with little white chunks of cornstarch in it. LOL Still tastes good, just the presentation goes out the window, and there's nothing quite like a lumpy sauce to make people nervous.
I have to agree with starr2be2. My mom has owned a Chinese restaurant for 20 years and when I made this I knew it was missing ketchup. She makes gallons of it at a time and getting her to give me a recipe is difficult so I tried to copy the taste. After I put ketchup in it it was MUCH better. I think it needs ginger as well.
I love this!! I needed a sweet & sour sauce for homemade crab rangoon, and this was perfect. As suggested, I tweeked the amounts of marachino juice and vinegar until it suited my family. I will never pay for 'extra' sweet and sour sauce at a restaurant so I have some at home again, and I haven't found one in the stores at all that tstes good. I was surprised to find marachino cherry juice by the bottle, look for it in the drink mixers aisle. THANK YOU!!
This was pretty good to me much closer than anything else I've tried. The maraschino cherry juice added a little too much cherry flavor. But next time I will reduce the cherry juice to probably a tablespoon or 2. I will add a dash of soy sauce and a 1/4 tsp of MSG. I know MSG is not very 'good for you' but it really does jack up the flavor of whatever you are cooking. I will probably add 1/4 cup tomato sauce or a TBSP of tomato paste too. Thanks for the cherry juice idea though!
After doing some research online I decided to give this recipe a try. I was terrified of the cherry juice. I made this just as written and it tasted just like a sweet n sour cherry juice. I added the 1/4 c ketchup as suggested and it didn't help. I then decided to add a T or so of soy sauce and although it was slightly better i will not be making this again. I like cherries but not in this sauce.
Quick easy and the perfect combo of sweet and sour. We served it with pork roast rice and veggies. Plan on making it again soon with wontons and rangoon.
This was easy and it makes a good amount. It was a little heavy on the cherry flavor (for us) so I may decrease this next time as well as decreasing the sugar a bit. It is sweet but as good as you'd get in a restaurant.
To keep things simple I replaced the 1/2 cup of cherry juice and 1/2 cup of pineapple juice with a 1/2 cup of fruit punch. I used a brand called Purity. It is made from pineapple cherry and orange juice and an apricot puree. I also added a dash of garlic onion and ginger powder and soy sauce. Also I added about a 1/4 of ketchup. It worked so well I'm convinced this is what they use at Chinese buffets. 5 STARS!
