Commercial Chinese-style plum sauce is a gooey, brown, sweet-and-sour condiment made from sweet plums, sugar, vinegar, ginger, garlic, onions and chiles. Plum sauce is used as a dipping sauce for fried dishes such as spring rolls, egg rolls or stir-fried noodles. Homemade plum barbecue sauce (above) has a reddish color.

Plum sauce is also sometimes mistakenly called "duck sauce," a nickname that spread when Westerners confused it with the similar-looking hoisin sauce, another Chinese condiment made from a fermented soybean base that is traditionally served with Peking Duck.