Substitute for sambal for people who can't handle spicy food?

December 27, 2014 6:23 PM

Planning on cooking Nasi Lemak for the family for dinner tonight, but most don't like spicy food....

The sambal I bought from the store is quite hot even though it's marked as mild, which is fine for me, but the family is less fond of spicy food, so I'm wondering if anyone was familiar with some kind of substitute I could use instead of sambal that would give the same kind of flavour and especially the same kind of consistency.

Bonus points for something off the shelf (and available in Australia).

posted by ryanbryan to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Well, here is a list of ingredients off the wiki:

Sambal is sauce typically made from a variety of chili peppers and secondary ingredients such as shrimp paste, fish sauce, garlic, ginger, shallot, scallion, sugar, lime juice, and rice vinegar or other vinegars.

Make your own leaving out the hot chili peppers?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:26 PM on December 27, 2014

What kind of sambal? Oelek? Belacan? You might be best off making your own with mild red peppers - maybe a mix of Fresno and red bell.
posted by WasabiFlux at 7:33 PM on December 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

sambal is basically anchovies + hot peppers.

american chilli or a sardine curry/sauce
posted by kinoeye at 7:34 PM on December 27, 2014

I've occasionally used sambal ulek in place of Chinese hot bean sauce, when I didn't have real hot bean sauce, by mixing it with regular black bean sauce. Maybe you could reverse that logic and cut your sambal with non-spicy bean sauce?
posted by Quietgal at 7:47 PM on December 27, 2014

Best answer: Sambal is used to "perk up" other dishes, both heat and flavour wise. Perhaps head off on a tangent and use a mild chutney instead? Something like a mild mango or coriander chutney might work - you still get the sour/sharp taste, lots of flavour, but no heat.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:38 PM on December 27, 2014

Best answer: Or you could cook a kurma from an off-the-shelf packet, although that would be more like a curry. However, it might be nice to have some variety, and gravy-covered lemak rice is tasty even if it's not spicy. The sweetness will also balance the heat of the sambal, making it a little more palatable.
posted by undue influence at 9:24 PM on December 27, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks all for the answers, love the idea of the chutney - requires less effort on my part, but the mild peppers sound like a great idea also!
posted by ryanbryan at 9:34 PM on December 27, 2014

Here is my (easy!) recipe for sambal, just substitute sweet peppers for hot peppers as needed. There are no anchovies in it, this is not something that's found in all sambals.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:19 AM on December 28, 2014

correction: the sambal used in nasi lemak has anchovies. sambal as a condiment and not as part of the dish is just a base and doesn't need anchovies.
posted by kinoeye at 7:11 AM on December 28, 2014 [1 favorite]