Balado is a type of hot and spicy bumbu (spice mixture) found in Minang cuisine of West Sumatra, Indonesia.[1] Balado sauce is made by stir frying ground red hot chili pepper with other spices including garlic, shallot, tomato and key lime juice in coconut or palm oil.

The ingredients are quite similar to sambal hot chili paste. However, unlike sambal—which is often treated as a separate dipping condiment, balado chili sauce is usually mixed and stir fried together with its main ingredients and treated as a dish. Balado is suitable for fried prawns, squid, fish (whole or cutlets), chicken, fried boiled eggs, fried beef, eggplant or potatoes.[2]

Because of its almost identical ingredients and technique, the term balado is often interchangeable with sambal goreng (lit.: "fried sambal"). Nevertheless, the term balado is more specifically referring to Minang cooking tradition, while sambal goreng refers to a more general Indonesian cuisine tradition.