How to Make Teriyaki Sauce and Marinade From Scratch
- PREP
Use this teriyaki sauce as a marinade, stir fry sauce, or glaze for chicken, salmon or shrimp. We use sake to make teriyaki sauce (it tastes so good). If you don’t have sake, we have provided alternatives in the notes section below.
Our recipe makes about 2 cups of sauce, which is a lot. That’s a good thing, though. It keeps in the fridge for weeks! If you don’t want to make as much, keep this in mind. To make the sauce, you need 1 part soy sauce : 1 part sugar : 1/2 part sake : 1/4 part vinegar
You Will Need
1 cup (235 ml) low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar, see notes for lowering sugar
1/2 cup (120 ml) sake (Japanese rice wine), see notes for alternatives
1/4 cup (60 ml) rice vinegar
1 heaping tablespoon finely grated ginger, see notes
Directions
Combine ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and cook, while stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Or, for a thick and shiny sauce, bring the teriyaki sauce to a simmer and cook for an extra 5 to 10 minutes. Cool.
Store the sauce in the refrigerator for several weeks. You can also freeze the sauce up to 3 months. If it ever seems too thick, thin with a tablespoon or so of water.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- For the ginger, we use a Microplane rasp grater, which helps the ginger to “melt” into the sauce. You can finely mince, but you will be left with bits of ginger in the sauce.
- Substitute for Sake: We love the delicate flavor of sake for teriyaki sauce, but if you cannot find it there are some alternatives. Mirin is a sweeter version of sake. You can either swap it for the sake and leave the sugar amount as is or pull back on the amount of sugar slightly to accommodate the extra sweetness (Try 3/4 cups of sugar instead of 1 cup). Dry vermouth or dry sherry can also work as a substitute.
- Can I Reduce the Sugar: The 1:1 ratio of sugar to soy sauce makes a nicely balanced sauce that is similar to most teriyaki restaurants and bottled sauces. It’s delicious, but if you are concerned with the amount of sugar, you can get away with reducing it. Reducing the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 cup or even 1/2 cup will make tasty sauces. Since the sauce does not need to cook long, you can taste as you go. Start with 1/2 cup, taste, and then increase the sugar until you are happy with the balance of salt and sweet.
- Using cornstarch: We do not include cornstarch in our recipe. Some teriyaki sauce recipes call for a little cornstarch mixed with water added to the saucepan to thicken the sauce. We find that an extra few minutes of simmering thicken the sauce enough for us, but you certainly can include it if you prefer.
- Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.
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