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Sauce recipe

Teriyaki Sauce

Four ingredients, no bottle required, and it reduces to a proper lacquer rather than a sugary syrup.

Teriyaki Sauce
The ratio
  • 2 partsSoy sauce
  • 2 partsMirin
  • 1 partSake
  • 1 partSugar
What you need
  • 120ml soy sauce
  • 120ml mirin
  • 60ml sake
  • 3 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 slice ginger, optional
  • 1 garlic clove, lightly crushed, optional
Makes
About 200ml
Ready in
15
Keeps
1 month in the fridge
How to make it
  1. Combine the soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar in a small saucepan.
  2. Add the ginger and garlic if using — they are not traditional but they give it depth.
  3. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
  4. Simmer for 8–10 minutes, uncovered, until reduced by about a third and it coats the back of a spoon.
  5. Fish out the ginger and garlic. Cool — it thickens considerably as it drops to room temperature.
  6. Store in a jar in the fridge.
About this sauce

Real teriyaki is soy, mirin, sake and sugar reduced until it coats a spoon. That is the entire recipe. The thick brown stuff in supermarket bottles is mostly cornflour and corn syrup doing an impression of it.

Because there is no starch, it thickens by evaporation alone — which means it will keep thickening in the pan after you take it off the heat. Pull it a shade looser than you think.

What to put it on

Salmon, chicken thighs, pork belly, grilled tofu, rice bowls, and brushed over yaki onigiri in the last minute of grilling.

New to it? Read what teriyaki actually is in the pantry glossary.