How To Use Teriyaki Sauce
- Teriyaki To use the sauce, pan-fry your favorite protein until it is almost fully cooked. Wipe out any oil from the pan as this can cloud the sauce. Then, add a few tablespoons of teriyaki sauce for each serving of protein and boil the sauce, repeatedly flipping your protein over to glaze it as the sauce thickens.
- Marinate fish or meat in this teriyaki sauce before broiling or grilling it.
- Stir-fry Teriyaki sauce can be used as a seasoning for stir-fries. Just make the stir-fry as you normally would, and drizzle the sauce in at the end to season it.
- Condiment If you want to use this Teriyaki Sauce as a condiment, such as for sushi or as a steak sauce, you can pre-thicken it by pouring it into a pot and boiling it until it becomes thick and syrupy. Let it cool and then it can stored in an airtight container such as a squeeze bottle or mason jar.
How To Make Teriyaki Sauce
This is a super quick and easy sauce to make, all you have to do is:
- Combine the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, honey, sesame oil, mirin and water mixed with cornstarch together in a bowl
- Transfer the mixture to a small saucepan and simmer for about 4 minutes until thickened.
- Your sauce is ready!
You can use it right away or store it in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks. And the flavors will get even better over time. Enjoy this fantastic best homemade teriyaki sauce in the dish of your choice!
Ready in less than 10 minutes, thoroughly delicious and free of fillers or junk ingredients, there simply is no good reason to EVER use store-bought again!
Enjoy!
The Ingredients For 5
Before anything else, you need to prepare the following for your 5 ingredient teriyaki sauce recipe:
- ½ cup of water/ ½ cup of mirin
- ¼ cup of soy sauce
- 4-5 tbsp of honey
- 1 tbsp of minced ginger
- cup of apple cider/ vinegar
- 1 tbsp of arrowroot powder/ cornstarch
A gluten-free soy sauce is the best choice in preparing our 5-ingredient teriyaki sauce. It is also advisable to use a Japanese soy sauce since it has a unique flavor. It is a must if you wish to create a Japanese dish with an authentic taste.
Other than ordinary water, you may choose mirin as a substitute. Mirin is close to the taste of Japanese sake. Its alcohol content is low, which is only about 14 percent. But same with sake, it is sweet and probably has more sugar. This is a good choice in cooking the 5-ingredient teriyaki sauce recipe.
Other than substitutes for soy sauce and water, you may also use sugar or honey and vodka as alternatives to mirin. Just a reminder, be careful when putting sugar or honey because your 5-ingredient teriyaki sauce might become too sweet.
Once done preparing everything included in the list, you can now start cooking the 5-ingredient teriyaki sauce, which includes vinegar, ginger, honey, and mirin.
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Why You Need Mirin For Teriyaki Sauce
Besides soy sauce and sugar, one important ingredient that gives teriyaki sauce its deep, rich flavor is mirin. Mirin is a Japanese rice-based cooking wine that has a lower alcohol content than sake and is usually lightly sweetened. It gives teriyaki sauces that characteristic rich umami flavor. I see many teriyaki sauce recipes online that omit mirin, and I cant help but be skeptical of them. Without mirin, all you really have is sweetened soy sauce. You can usually find mirin in the Asian section of your grocery store or at your local Asian supermarket.
One thing to note, you might find bottles of aji-mirin at your local store. Aji mirin translates to mirin-flavored. They taste just like mirin but contains slightly more sugar. It works just fine for this recipe.
Some teriyaki sauce recipes call for equal parts of soy sauce, mirin, and sake. Because I dont typically keep sake around the house, I use water for the recipe instead. I think the sauce still has great flavor without the sake.
How Teriyaki Sauce Is Used Around The World
In Japan, teriyaki is traditionally used to flavor grilled seafood. The Japanese favor fatty seafood like tuna, yellowtail, or the aforementioned eel, because the crisp fat of grilled seafood tastes fantastic with the salty-sweet flavor of teriyaki. Seafood teriyaki might once have been roasted on skewers over a fire, but a charcoal grill now serves the same purpose. Tsuji suggested adding the sauce to a frying pan in the late stages of cooking. This provides a beautiful, shiny glaze that coats the ingredients with color and flavor, and helps the sugar in the sauce avoid burning.
In the West, teriyaki is popularly used to prepare salmon, beef, or chicken, and the ingredients in the sauce are a little different. It’s also often used as a dip for potstickers. Teriyaki is meant to be a cooking sauce, not a table sauce, but it’s perfectly safe to use as a dip or a condiment. Western teriyaki often doesn’t contain sake, and sometimes doesn’t even contain mirin, but it may include additional flavorings like minced garlic, minced ginger, or toasted sesame oil, and more sugar or other sweeteners like honey.
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What Exactly Is Teriyaki
First of all, if you arent aware, teriyaki in Japanese actually describes a cooking method. Teri means luster and yaki means grilled, broiled or pan-fried. Its not the sauce we refer to, but rather how the food is prepared. So teriyaki essentially refers to any grilled/broiled/pan-fried food with shining glaze.
When the food is prepared in teriyaki style, we season the food with soy sauce, sake, and mirin . Since the meaning of teriyaki has been deviated by simply referring to a Japanese sauce outside of Japan, Id just refer to it as a sauce in this post.
As mentioned briefly, we actually dont use bottled teriyaki sauces in Japan as we make our own sauce. Sometimes I get asked which brand of teriyaki is the best and I can only say the best teriyaki sauce is homemade and its as easy as 1-2-3 steps shown in this recipe.
How To Make Teriyaki Sauce Step By Step Photos
It all starts with these four ingredients, which can be kept on hand at all times. I keep my fresh ginger in the freezer , so I can take it out and grate a little bit as needed at any time. It is much easier to grate when frozen.
To make the marinade, simply stir together 1/4 cup soy sauce, 3 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp water, 1 clove of garlic , and about 1 tsp grated ginger. Thats it. That only takes about 5 minutes.
This mixture is very concentrated in flavor, so it will flavor whatever you soak in it deeply. Meat or tofu can marinate for about 30 minutes, fish for 15 minutes. Then just cook your meat, seafood, or tofu using your favorite method.
To make a teriyaki SAUCE, prepare the marinade as described above but also add an additional 1/2 cup water and 1 Tbsp cornstarch. The cornstarch will make it look kind of milky, like in the photo above
Add the mixture to a saucepot and bring to a simmer over medium heat, while stirring. Once it simmers, it will go from milky to clear and watery to thick. Your sauce is now ready to pour over your cooked meat, vegetables, or tofu. OR, if you want to use it as a stir fry sauce, you can just pour the un-thickened sauce directly into your hot stir fry pan and it will simmer and thicken on contact.
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Why This Recipe Works
Easy Thisquick teriyaki sauce takes only10 minutes from start to finish. Thats faster than going to the store to buy it! Just whisk the ingredients together in a saucepan, cool, and either use right away or store for later.
Versatile I mentioned I like to use this Japanese teriyaki sauce as a marinade or glaze for meat like chicken, steak, pork, and even seafood. But I also like to use it as a dip for raw veggies, or as a sauce for cooked veggies too. It also goes great with other ingredients, like Sriracha or chili oil if you want to take the heat level up a notch.
Keeps well You can freeze or refrigerate any leftover teriyaki. Itll freeze pretty much indefinitely, and up to two weeks in the fridge if you can wait that long to eat it all!
Tasty This recipe for homemade teriyaki sauce isnt just meant to be an imitation of the bottled stuff. Oh no, this takes the bottled sauce to a whole new level. Sweet and tangy, with just the perfect amount of ginger, garlic, and spice to make anything it touches taste that much better.
Kevins Natural Foods Teriyaki Sauce
Are you on a keto diet and want to add some teriyaki sauce to your cooking? Kevins Natural Foods Teriyaki Sauce is the answer for you.
Its two grams of sugar come from natural sweeteners like monk fruit extract, stevia leaf extract, and paprika.
The three-pack serving contains 25 calories per serving with 10% sodium, 1% fat, 2% carbs, and 4% added sugar. It costs $15 per ounce.
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What Are The Best Dishes To Serve With 5
It is quite easy to find a complement to your 5 ingredient teriyaki sauce, here are some of those dishes:
- Beef Teriyaki This is an easy dish to prepare. In 15 minutes, you can eat this delicious meal with a drizzle of 5 ingredient teriyaki sauce.
- Teriyaki Chicken Meatballs The only difference between this dish and the chicken teriyaki is its form: meatballs, which is easier to cook and eat.
- Salmon Teriyaki This meal is low in calories and rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which is also a good source of protein.
If you are craving for other meals that will complement the 5 ingredient teriyaki sauce, you may freely experiment! Share with us your unique dishes and tell us how it tasted after mixing with the 5 ingredient teriyaki sauce recipe.
Dont Add These Ingredients
Adding any ingredients that dull the luster of Teriyaki Sauce is a no-no. You can either use these ingredients to marinate your food, or use them as a garnish.
- Aromatics fresh garlic, ginger, scallions, and onions are a popular choice, but all of these ingredients will cloud the Teriyaki Sauce. If you want to add these flavors to your dish, grate them and use the mixture to marinate your protein before cooking it. If you add a lot, youll want to scrape it off the meat before cooking it.
- Fruit Juice orange juice, apple juice, pineapple juice, etc. These will cloud the sauce and make it sour.
- Seeds Sesame seeds are best used as a garnish once your dish is finished.
- Vinegar Teriyaki sauce shouldnt be sour, so dont add rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, etc.
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Teriyaki Sauce With On
When we were doing the recipe-testing for the wing series, there were a lot of wings in this house to eat. I started experimenting with different sauces to toss them with. I really wanted to make a teriyaki sauce but a lot of the recipes I found online had ingredients that I didnt have, like rice wine. I decided to make a version that uses things I always have in my pantry. This teriyaki recipe was born!
Its made out of soy sauce, water, regular white vinegar, brown sugar, garlic powder, ground ginger, and cornstarch. First you make a paste out of the cornstarch and some water. Then you mix that with everything else in a small saucepan. Heat it to a boil and simmer it until its thick.
Meal Prep And Storage
- To Prep-Ahead: This recipe yields 1 cup of teriyaki sauce, perfect to make in advance and use throughout the week. Two tablespoons equals one serving size.
- To Store: This sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 1-2 weeks in an airtight container.
- To Freeze: It is not recommended to freeze this sauce.
- To Reheat: Return to a saucepan over low heat, or pop in the microwave until heated through.
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Cornstarch Or Arrowroot Starch
Starch helps thicken the sauce. Without it, the sauce would be quite watery. If you want to make your teriyaki sauce without cornstarch, arrowroot is the perfect substitute.
Well mix the starch with an equal amount of water to make a slurry. We make a slurry so we can liquify the starch and work out any lumps before pouring it into the simmering sauce.
Substitutions For Teriyaki Sauce:
Sometimes you dont have all the ingredients for a dish on hand.
When talking about substitutions for a teriyaki sauce, I say instead of just looking for a substitution for teriyaki sauce, ditch the store bought sauces and make your own.
All teriyaki sauces have some similar base ingredients like soy sauce, a sweetener of some kind, ginger and a lot of times garlic.
If you are looking at this homemade teriyaki sauce recipe and dont have all the exact ingredients, there are some substitutions that can be made for some ingredients.
Possible Ingredient Substitutions For Teriyaki Sauce:
- Use coconut aminos in place of soy sauce
- Use sugar, brown sugar, or honey as a sweetener
- Flour or arrow root powder in place of cornstarch
- Fresh ginger or ground ginger
- Fresh garlic or garlic powder
Note: To get the best results use the ingredients from the recipe. However in a pinch you could make some substitutions if needed. Be aware that proportions may differ with certain substitutions.
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Why Does Kikkoman Soy Sauce Taste Different
Chemically produced soy sauce The sauces flavour and aroma dont develop naturally, but in a chemical process and through the addition of ingredients such as corn syrup, glucose syrup, molasses and colour additives. Thats why the consistency is syrupy. Chemically produced soy sauce often has an overpowering flavour.
Brown sugar, unlike white, contains molasses which can help to thicken a sauce.
Here is what you need to do with this method:
Step One: Add a few tablespoons of brown sugar to your teriyaki sauce as you are heating it.
Pros Of Using Brown Sugar
- Relatively inexpensive and easy to buy.
- Ideal for those who like sweeter teriyaki or would like a change.
Cons Of Using Brown Sugar
- Can make your teriyaki sauce too sweet.
- Non-reversable!
Five different methods for reducing teriyaki sauce.
All of which come with their pros and cons.
Thankfully though, you should be able to find one that suits your preferences and circumstances.
Besides, you likely have some of these ingredients already lying around at home.
Or, it will not be too much of a challenge to get them!
Either way, do ensure you thicken your teriyaki sauce to the right consistency.
It is generally much better that way.
How To Make Teriyaki Sauce ~ Instant Pot Directions
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Easy Homemade Teriyaki Sauce
TERIYAKI SAUCE
Teriyaki Sauce the more authentic version
- 1/2cupsakeor add more mirin
- 1/2cupmirin
- 1/4cupsugar
- Optional: 1/2 tsp minced garlic and/or 1/4 tsp grated ginger
Slurry, For the Glaze
- 1 1/2tbspcorn starch
- 3tbsp room temp water
Teriyaki Sauce no mirin and sake
- 1/4 to 1/2cupsoy saucesee notes
- 1/2cupwater
- 1/3cupsugaror adjust according to desired sweetness
- Optional: 1/2 tsp minced ginger and/or 1/4 tsp minced garlic
For the Glaze
- 1tbspcorn starch
- 2tbsproom temperature water
Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Recipe
There are lots of things I used to never considered making before, turning instead to the conveniently bottled versions. Salad dressings, mayonnaise, etc. Some of them I still buy bottled mayonnaise and some I make from scratch at home salad dressings. One of these condiments that I love to make from scratch is homemade Teriyaki sauce. It is so super easy and good, it made me wonder why I ever bought the store bought kind!
This homemade teriyaki sauce recipe only takes minutes to make, and tastes a lot better than the jarred sauce. This sauce is great just served as a sauce alongside your favorite meats as well as a marinade. I love that it is so versatile!
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The History Of Teriyaki
The sauce and the way it’s used are essentially inseparable concepts in Japanese cooking. One can’t cook something “teriyaki style” without the sauce, and one wouldn’t use teriyaki sauce in any other way. According to the oldest surviving writing on the subject, teriyaki dates back at least as far as the early 19th centurythe late Edo period in Japan. William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, authors of A History of Soy Sauce, note that a glaze of soy sauce, mirin, and sake was used in recipes for charcoal-baked eel before the term “teriyaki” was coined.
In a seminal book on Japanese cuisine, the aptly named Japanese Cooking, celebrated chef Shizuo Tsuji offered a simple recipe for the sauce: seven tablespoons of dark soy sauce, seven tablespoons of mirin, seven tablespoons of sake, and one tablespoon of sugar, boiled in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. We have our own tried-and-tested teriyaki recipe that’s lighter on the sake and heavier on the sugar. The “gloss” of teriyaki comes primarily from the mirin, a syrupy rice wine.
