6th September, 2021
How to Make Teriyaki Sauce?
A staple in Japanese cooking, teriyaki sauce is an easy-to-make versatile sauce that can be used to elevate the flavours of almost any dish.
The sauce can also be found in supermarkets; however, the fresh authentic version will have a much better taste, with no preservatives that are often found in bottled sauces.
So, let’s learn how to make teriyaki sauce.
What is Teriyaki Sauce?
Teriyaki sauce is considered as a fundamental Japanese marinade and seasoning invented by Japanese chefs in the 17th century. It’s traditionally made by mixing and heating soy sauce, mirin and sake.
But let’s explain what teriyaki means. Teriyaki is made up of two Japanese words, ‘teri’ which refers to the shine on the food given by the sugar in the mirin and ‘yaki’ which is the food preparation method referring to grilling, broiling, or pan-frying.
So, in general, teriyaki is a Japanese cooking technique, referring to meat being marinated in teriyaki sauce and then broiled or grilled – rather than the sauce itself.
Apart from being used as a marinade, it can also be served as a dipping sauce or poured over the meat once it’s been cooked.
The traditional homemade teriyaki sauce is a thin mixture, but it can also be thickened to be used for dipping. Whereas, store-bought bottled varieties are thicker and may not taste as good as the fresh version.
Teriyaki Sauce Recipe
The traditional Japanese teriyaki sauce contains five main ingredients. However, non-traditional versions contain additional ingredients. You should adjust your ingredients based on your taste and whether you want a Japanese or westernised teriyaki sauce.
This easy-to-make recipe takes around 5 minutes and serves up to 4 people.
Teriyaki Sauce Ingredients
For a traditional Japanese teriyaki sauce recipe that can be used as a marinade and glaze, you only need four ingredients:
However, if you’re looking to enhance the taste further, you can add any of the below ingredients:
If you want to use teriyaki only as a dipping sauce, add in cornflour mixed with water for a thicker consistency because without it, the sauce would be too runny.
Preparation Method
Whether you’re making a traditional or less traditional version of teriyaki sauce, the preparation method is simple for both.
Pour water into a small pan and mix all the ingredients together. Keeping on medium heat, stir until the sugar has completely dissolved and bring the sauce to a boil.
To give the sauce that glossy shine and slight thickness, lower the heat and continue to cook for 5 minutes.
If you feel your sauce is too thin and want to thicken it more to be used as a dipping sauce, simply mix the cornflour with cold water and add it in the sauce – cook this further until you achieve your desired thickness.
The sauce can also be thinned with water if it’s too thick for your liking. Once the sauce has been cooked, turn off the heat and let it cool before serving or storing it in the refrigerator.
Homemade teriyaki sauce has a shorter shelf life and is best kept in the fridge and used within a few days or frozen for longer storage. While the shelf life of store-bought teriyaki sauce kept in the pantry is 3-6 months if opened and 3 years if left unopened.
What Does Teriyaki Sauce Taste Like?
Teriyaki sauce is a sweet, tangy and sticky sauce. The authentic, homemade, traditional version of the sauce will also have salty umami undertones due to mirin and soy sauce.
The less traditional version will have the same taste, but with a slight hint of other ingredients included in the recipe, such as ginger and garlic.
Teriyaki Sauce Uses
Best known for complementing grilled dishes such as Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Grilled Teriyaki Salmon, the sauce is mainly used as a marinade or glaze for meat and fish dishes.
The beauty of the sauce is that it can be used for barbecuing dishes such as chicken wings and lamp chops, used as a sauce in burgers, in salad dressings, noodle dishes such as teriyaki chicken noodle, stir-fries such as teriyaki chicken stir-fry and as a dipping sauce for dishes such as teriyaki pot stickers.
Why Use Mizkan’s Honteri in Teriyaki Sauce?
Mizkan’s Honteri, is a mirin-style sweet seasoning, but with lower alcohol levels. Because it contains 0.5% alcohol, it does not require boiling like mirin, so it is quicker and easier to use.
When using mirin in teriyaki sauce, you must boil it first to evaporate the alcohol. With Honteri, you can just add it alongside other ingredients and start the teriyaki sauce making process.
The ingredient is perfect in teriyaki sauce as it adds a complex and rounded sweetness as well as helping to accentuate and balance savoury flavours of dishes.
If you want to find out more about how to use Mizkan Chef products in your restaurants, get in touch with our expert team here.
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