Is Asian food often sweet?

I’ve eaten Chinese, Japanese and Thai. And they all had their share of sweet tasting savory dishes.
Sweet and sour chicken, Duck sauce, teryaki sauce, some thai coconut curry. And lots of the ingredients tend to seem sweet. (Ginger, orange, plum, coconut, fennel)

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9 comments a “Is Asian food often sweet?”

Westernized Asian food tends to be much sweeter than the real thing.

to me it seems to either be sweet or too salty, only in America, but the original recipes, like real traditional Asian foods are really tasty, REAL, like from that country its self, taste a lot better than these quick foods places. it has to be authentic in order to get the bes tout of Asian foods.

but whatever it may be too sweet or too salty, i always need like a gallon of water to drink afterwards lol.

The Japanese recipes seem to have the most sweetners in there.

some are sweet some are spicey thay come in all flavors i love all the food!

Asian dishes do tend to balance flavors & tastes: sweet, spicy, sour, bitter…..

This is very common and follows the principles of Yin/Yang, Ayurveda…..

On the whole I would say salty and spicy flavours are far more dominant than sweetened dishes. Sweet savoury dishes are considered more for kids and foreigners. It also depends on the country eg. like Japan which does not go for spicy foods like the rest of Asia. And the level of sweetness is very low compared to Westernised Asian food found in Western countries.

Also, I wouldn’t consider things like ginger and coconut as sweet? Ginger is definitely spicy especially mature ginger and Asians don’t use sweet crystallised ginger. Coconut water is sweet but coconut milk is used more for its fragrance & richness that it imparts to food.

yep they do taste quite sweet but if u taste indian/bengali or pakistani food they are spicy.

they usually put sugar in their sauces which is why theyre sweet.

Well, I grew up in Northern China, and we NEVER put sugar in a savory dish. I was a little suprised too when I learned how much sugar, salt and oil they put in a dish here.

Is Asian food often sweet?

9 comments a “Is Asian food often sweet?”

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