Seasoned Rice Vinegar


    One of the most basic ingredients in my kitchen is a seasoned rice vinegar I make as a salad dressing, a topping on vegetables, as a cooking "wine", and as a flavoring in soups and rice dishes.  It provides a nice mellow combination of sweet, sour, salty and sometimes spicy all at once.

   24 oz bottle regular Rice Vinegar
   2 oz Fish Sauce
   2-3 Tbs. DrDave Sugar Replacement
   or 1/8 tsp pure stevia
   1 Tbs. sweet Chili Sauce

     I usually do this the lazy way by pouring a half cup of the vinegar into another container for later use and then just adding the other ingredients right into the vinegar bottle.  A quick shake and you are done.  This blend can sit on the shelf, i.e. no refrigeration needed.  It makes a great almost no calorie dressing.  It also is a fabulous addition to traditional chili or other legume dishes - it fills in the flavor palette nicely.        I also tend to use either Fish Sauce or this seasoned vinegar as a replacement for soy sauce since I am gluten sensitive.  (I hear there is a wheat free soy sauce, but I don't really want the soy either.)
     Be careful when you buy the rice vinegar that you get straight rice vinegar - the most common rice vinegar on the store shelves is already seasoned with a lot of not good sugar.