Making Chinese chicken-and-broccoli sauce I love the sauce you get on that take-out dish, and I want to make it myself. From all the places I've ordered it, it tastes relatively the same, yet several recipes online show big differences. So I compiled a list of the most common ingredients to these recipes. My question is, which of these are nonessential to the standard recipe: Soy sauce, sugar, garlic, sesame oil, hoison sauce, dry sherry (Chinese cooking wine), and chicken stock.
Think of Soy sauce, sugar, garlic, rice wine (or sherry) as the basic formula for that kind of sauce. Stock will help round things out, you can experiment with other stocks (vegetable, shiitake...). Mind that green onions (Not mixed into the sauce but used in the preparation; and often ginger and some hot pepper and/or white pepper) also are common in stir fry sauces like that.

(Toasted) sesame oil and hoisin sauce are more of add-on aromatic flavors. Both are potent and can be overdone easily.

Keep in mind that light and toasted sesame oil is not at all the same - usually toasted is intended. Also, add toasted sesame oil late, do not burn it by cooking it down with the sauce or even using it to saute in.