Lee Kum Kee Spicy Garlic Eggplant Sauce (2.8 oz - 12 Pack) - Spicy, & Savory Garlic Flavor, Ready-to-Use, Perfect for Stir-Frying, Braising, Drizzling, Steamed Dishes & Marinades

We first found this product on an Asian-foods specialty site, but when they were sold out, we discovered we could get it from Amazon for about the same price if we bought in bulk. And we like this stuff enough to buy it in bulk!It is somewhat spicy, but not overwhelmingly so, and has a nicely balanced sweet-and-sour flavor that goes great with eggplant. I should point out that we've only made it with Japanese / Chinese type eggplant, which is about as long but much skinnier than 'regular' eggplant, about the size of an English cucumber, and a brighter purple rather than nearly black; it's also less bitter than 'regular' eggplant.As the instructions say, you want about 12 oz of eggplant, which is roughly two eggplants if you're able to source the Chinese type. (We use a postal scale to weigh our eggplants so we get as close to 12 oz as possible, but this isn't strictly necessary.) We cut the eggplant in diagonal slices about finger-thickness, then cut those in half to make two stretched-looking half-moons from each slice.From there, we depart from the package instructions.They say to either deep-fry or boil the eggplant, but we just saute ours in neutral oil -- this also has the advantage of making this a one-pot dish.They say to add ground meat, but we don't do that either, though you could.Instead, once the eggplant is all softened and translucent, we add the sauce and stir, then let it cook together just long enough to heat the sauce. If the sauce is too thick, sometimes we add a splash or two of rice vinegar to loosen it up, but that's optional.Then we serve it over rice. Twelve oz eggplant and one packet sauce only makes enough for two people, but it shouldn't be hard to scale the proportions up, provided you have a big enough pan.Enjoy!

Good stuff to make a quick batch of Mapo Tofu. If you’re used to the glass jar version, two sachets are about the same amount of mix you’d get out of one jar .

As a pro Italian/French chef who loves this dish and has prepared it hundreds of time for myself, this is the worst version of ma po that I have ever tasted packaged or not. I have tasted other simple sauces packaged for retail that were at least as good as greasy spoon versions but this is most definitely not one of them. Salty, bitter, it tastes more like pure bean paste than a fully made sauce and I suggest using it this way if you must use it all. Strongly suggest avoiding this one. Ma po is easy enough to make from scratch with just bean paste, chili paste and powder and szechuan peppercorns so I'll try to keep them on hand and look for shortcuts for a quick snack elsewhere.

For some reason our local favorite Asian grocery store no longer stocks this brand. we anre addicted to this Mapo Dofu seasoning and was so happy to find it on Amazon and ordered several packages. If you like spicy tofu dishes, this seasoning is great! I add a bit of chicken broth to it to tone down the burn a bit, but the flavor is still great! Stir fry the tofu along with desired veggies and/or meat and top with sliced green onion and serve over rice…yum!

Short expiration date. Had to give away most of the packs because of this.

I am a big mapo tofu fan and this is the best sauce for making it at home, if you’re not going to do it from scratch. All the other versions I have tried are mediocre in comparison to this one. It’s always sold out at my local market so I splurged for a multi pack to be mailed to me!

Very salty... not authentic just not genuine or good tasting. Disappointed

This is a very good, inexpensive rendition of the famous "Pockmarked Old Grandma's Tofu" sauce (Ma Po Tofu). It is not very spicy, so if you make yours hot, add some dried red Japanese chilis (in the Mexican foods section of your market in the West) or even red flaked pepper Italian style, to give it some heat. Sriracha works nicely as well.I don't like tofu all that much, so I use diced eggplant, sauteed in oil with garlic and ginger, and then add ground beef (instead of the pork). Very, very tasty!