Chinese Noodle Sauces: Classic Pairings & Combos

Some things are just better together—like peanut butter and jelly, or Chinese noodles and sauces. However, some sauce and noodle combinations were made for each other based on their flavors, consistency, and how the sauce coats and clings to the noodles.

Here’s a breakdown of some of our favorites—and what we recommend having as a standby for your next meal.

Breaking Down Chinese Sauces for Noodles by Flavor Pairings

To understand why some sauces work best for certain types of noodles, it helps to understand the role that flavors play in Chinese cuisine. There are traditionally five major flavor profiles, including:

• Spicy

• Sweet

• Bitter

• Sour

• Salty

These overarching flavors often blend and enhance each other in different ways depending on the region where the food is from. Here’s a closer look at each one, with some examples of dishes where they take center stage.

Spicy and Mala

Traditionally categorized under the umbrella term “pungent,” foods with spicy and mala (麻辣) flavors have that unmistakable heat and a tingly, numbing sensation in the case of the latter flavor.

Some of the best sauces for Chinese noodles bring the heat while blending with elements of sweetness, saltiness, or even the slightest bitter element for contrast. For example, sauces like chili crunch let mala take center stage while garlic and the slightest hint of rosemary make for a nuanced level of smoky spice. 

On the other hand, shacha noodles (沙茶面), which come from Fujian, marry umami and spicy heat in equal measure for a nutty result that will give your taste buds the slow burn they’ve been craving.

Sour

Sour is another major player in the Chinese flavor pantheon—and it goes far beyond the plum sauce some people get with roast duck in their takeout order. Some of the best Chinese sauces for noodles feature rice vinegar or black vinegar to provide a contrast to meats, fat, or oil in a noodle dish.

One of the prime examples of sour elements in action is hot and sour noodles (酸辣粉), a classic in Sichuan cuisine where glass noodles swim in chili oil and vinegar sauce. However, it’s also a staple in cold noodle dishes that are popular in the height of summer because of the refreshing tang of the sauce.

Salty

Often classified under the same category as umami, the salty flavor profile deserves its own distinction. A lot of noodle dishes in Chinese cuisine have a salty element to them, especially those that use soy sauce as a main ingredient. Much like the bassist in a band, it provides support so other flavors can shine.

It also takes center stage in the beef noodle soup (牛肉面) of Sichuan and Taiwan. This is a classic answer to days when you’re feeling sick, blue, or like you had too much fun the night before, and it features a salty, meaty broth that acts more like a sauce than a soup. The salty flavor is a familiar classic for us—like the instant noodles that got us through our university days but with none of the regrets.

Umami

Closely related to salty and often associated with the flavors of garlic, scallions, and the MSG that naturally occurs in everything from tomatoes to cheese, umami is the backbone for all sorts of noodle dishes. It’s a flavor captured in sauces for sesame noodles, oyster sauce, and even some dumpling sauces like our top-selling scallion-ginger sauce.

Sweet

This flavor element isn’t the same cloyingly sweet flavors you’ll find with a doughnut or a sheet cake at a kid’s birthday party. Instead, it’s more understated and tends to be a subtle hint rather than the main event.

Sweet flavors are present in all sorts of Chinese noodle dishes, both hot and cold. For example, while scallion oil noodles are very umami-forward, the caramelization process also introduces sweet notes to the mix. This creates a balance that makes the savoriness shine even more.

You’ll also notice sweet elements in black bean sauce, fermented soybean sauce, and the peanut and sesame sauces frequently added to cold noodle dishes.

A Few of Our Favorite Saucy Chinese Noodles

With some of the popular flavor elements and combinations in mind, these sauce-forward Chinese noodle dishes are just a few of our favorite things.

Dan Dan Noodles with Spicy Sauce

As one of the most famous Asian noodle sauces from anywhere on the continent, dan dan sauce has spread and adapted itself to local cuisines and noodle dishes ranging from Japanese tantanmen to close cousins like bibim guksu in Korea. However, the OG Dan Dan noodles (担担面) will always be near and dear to our hearts—so much so that they’re a staple in our store.

As a whole dish, the sauce combines umami and a delightfully numbing amount of spice with ground pork and thin, bouncy noodles. The sauce clings to the noodles without overpowering them—and in the end, you get a noodle dish that’s like a combination rave and fireworks show in your mouth.

Caramelized Scallion Oil Noodles

A Shanghai classic, Scallion Oil Noodles (葱油拌面) are a source of culinary pride for the city. With a sophisticated umami sauce that has a sweet undertone and just enough sour tang to balance it out, this is a delicate dish that stands on its own. 

We make our version of scallion oil noodles with gently caramelized green onions, soy sauce, and oil. The result is a captivating taste that makes for a light, humble noodle dish with substance.

Zha Jiang Noodles with Bean Sauce

Zha Jiang Noodles (炸酱面) have lots of different interpretations, but almost all of them involve a sauce with fermented soybeans and thick, chewy noodles. Some recipes call for meat, tofu, and fresh or pickled vegetables, but practically all of them have that sweet-and-savory soybean-based sauce.

At MìLà, our interpretation of this classic involves that unmistakable umami sauce, fresh vegetables, and ground pork for a combination that’s meaty, savory, sweet, and out of this world.

This pairing works better than your warmest pair of pajamas on a cold winter night. Because the noodles are thick and toothsome, they balance out the salty, umami notes in the sauce for one of the best comfort foods around.

Ants Climbing Trees with Spicy and Salty Sauce

We don’t know who exactly came up with some of these Sichuanese dishes—or who thought of this dish’s admittedly strange name—but their ideas were genius. And whoever in particular named ants climbing a tree (蚂蚁上树) must’ve had a wild sense of humor to match.

Not to be confused with ants on a log—that dish some of our moms used to use to make us eat more vegetables as a kid—ants climbing a tree is similar to Dan Dan noodles in some ways. Both entail ground meat and chilis, but that’s about where the similarities end.

Ants climbing a tree instead focuses more upon sour and salty flavors from black vinegar and soy sauce, along with the umami tastes of scallions, ginger, and garlic to elevate the meat.

Spicy-Umami Biang Biang Noodles

Biang biang noodles (𰻝𰻝面, or 油泼扯面 if you don’t want to write out 58 individual strokes for the original character twice) are like that kid you knew in school who worked on a farm growing up but eventually had the glow-up of the century. They started as a cheap but hearty meal for laborers before they caught on in elegant restaurants and noodle shops across China.

The wide, thick noodles involved in biang biang noodles come together with a sauce that blends black rice vinegar, light soy sauce, chilis, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, and garlic. 

The resulting sauce might overpower a more delicate noodle shape. However, the shape and width of a biang biang noodle balance it out for the perfect marriage of texture, heat, umami, and sourness. 

Let Your Noodles Get Lost in the Sauce

A world without some good, saucy noodles is like—wait, we don’t want to know what that’s like, and we don’t want you to know either. Sauce up your life by trying our freshly frozen Chinese noodles today and never look back.