The plain red chile paste of Indonesia in its American-jar form: hot red chiles pulsed to a paste with a little rice vinegar and salt.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Peppers and Hot Sauce pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 1 pound hot red chilies, such as red jalapeños, fresnos, or red serranos
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon salt
Directions
- Pulse the chiles, vinegar and salt in a food processor until they form a paste, scraping down the sides as needed. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Notes
Source Adapted from Joshua Bousel, “Sambal Oelek,” Serious Eats (2013, modified 2025). The headnote says half the jalapeños were seeded; the ingredient list does not say so. Seed some of the chiles for a milder paste.
What it is and is not By the author’s own framing it sits “in between the one-ingredient version” and the vinegar-and-salt jars sold in America. The traditional sambal ulek is simply chiles crushed into a paste in a cobek (mortar) with an ulekan (pestle); “oelek” is the Dutch-colonial spelling of ulek. This version is made in a processor, not pounded.
Storage Raw and only lightly acidified, so it is a refrigerator condiment: keep it chilled and use it within the source’s 2 weeks.
The dish The Peppers and Hot Sauce section (/hot-sauce/) covers sambal as a family of sauces, and where the word oelek comes from.
The photo The photograph is a stand-in: a commercial jar of sambal oelek.