An optimized capillary electrophoresis (CZE) method to analyze complex mixtures of aldoses was developed. The approach allows simultaneous quantitative analysis of all four isomeric aldopentoses, eight aldohexoses, as well as xylo- and cellooligosaccharides up to the tetraoses. UV tagging with 4-aminobenzoic acid ethyl ester (ABEE) in combination with reductive amination was used as pre-column derivatization. With optimum baseline separation and short run times, the method is very robust, and especially suited to follow reaction and isomerization kinetics of monosaccharides.