Dark soy sauce is used for color and flavor – imparting a wonderful mahogany color to everything it comes in contact with.
Light and versatile soy sauce is used when you want to add spices (salt) to dishes without overpowering them with a strong soy flavor or coloring the food darkly.
A combination of dark and light soy sauce is used to create a balance of flavor, salt, and color.
Which soy sauce to buy?
For Japanese dishes, use a good all-purpose or Chinese light soy sauce.
Chinese food involves a number of different styles originating from different regions of China. The most famous and distinctive styles are Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine and Sichuan cuisine. Chinese food in America and Europe mostly evolved from Cantonese cuisine.
If you are cooking Cantonese or similar style Chinese food, buy Chinese light and dark soy sauces. If a Cantonese recipe calls for soy sauce without specification, it means light soy sauce. Popular brands are Koon Chun, Pearl River Bridge and Lee Kum Kee. You have to try the best one for yourself, because each one has its strengths and weaknesses.
Chinese soy sauces
Chinese soy sauce is also called jiangyou (酱油), zhiyou (豉油) and douyou (豆油). Compared to Japanese, Chinese usually contains less wheat flour and wheat bran in the recipe. From a technical point of view, wheat flour is used for incubation rather than flavor enhancement.
China has no national standard to distinguish soy sauce by color or use. The types of ” light soy sauce ” and ” dark soy sauce ” originally come from the traditional name in areas of southern Cantonese cuisine, including Guangdong and Hong Kong. Nowadays, this naming of soy sauce is slowly becoming popular in China and beyond.
Historically, in most regions outside of southern China, including Sichuan, only one soy sauce is used for everything. For example, even now, local well-known brands in Sichuan, such as Zhongba and Xianshi, still produce only one universal soy sauce. This all-in-one soy sauce culture is similar to Japan and Taiwan. It is not unusual that many locals there still do not know light and dark soy sauce at all.
Light soy sauce
Light soy sauce (生抽), has a relatively thin consistency, light color, salty taste and low viscosity. Compared to universal, this sauce is lighter. In Cantonese cuisine, it is referred to as regular soy sauce. The grade of quality of light soy sauce is classified as “Premium” (特级), “Gold Label” (金校) or “Silver Label” (银校). As with extra virgin olive oil, the taste of the first premium extract is considered the best. Premium is sometimes called touchou (头抽). Its delicate taste leads to the fact that it is mainly used for flavoring light dishes and for dipping.
If it is fermented twice using light soy sauce from another batch to replace the brine for the second cooking, it is called double fermented soy sauce (双痜). Thanks to its luxurious taste, it is mainly intended for dipping.
Dark soy sauce
Dark soy sauce (老抽) is also called black. It has a darker color and a slightly denser texture. Its taste is richer, sweeter and less salty than its pale counterpart.
In traditional artisanal production, this sauce is made by allowing the first extract of light soy sauce to mature for several months in a sunny place. Thanks to the evaporation of water and the crystallization of salt during the maturation process, the sauce is darker, thicker and less salty, with a sweet flavor. In modern production, only molasses or caramel coloring is added to the light soy sauce (rarely the first extract) to give it a characteristic appearance.
It is mainly used for slow and long-term cooking, such as stewing, red-cooking, etc. It gives dishes a nice caramel color and a slightly sweet undertone.
When making dark soy sauce, mushroom stock is also sometimes added to create a richer flavor than regular dark soy sauce. The resulting product is called mushroom dark soy sauce (草菇老抽).
Japanese soy sauces
Soy sauce is called shoyu in Japanese. Compared to Chinese sauce, Japanese soy sauces are generally universally oriented. One bottle can work for all kinds of dishes from preparation in the kitchen to cooking to finishing on the table.
Regular Soy Sauce (醤油)
Japanese soy sauce, or shoyu, accounts for more than 80% of Japan’s total soy sauce production. It is made from roughly equal amounts of soybeans and whole wheat. Roasted wheat contributes not only to the aroma, but also to the fact that the sauce is clearer and thinner than Chinese soy sauces, which are made with a small proportion of wheat flour. Thanks to this difference in composition and fermentation time, it is slightly sweeter, rounder and richer in taste than the Chinese one, which is thicker, sharper and saltier.
Tamari soy sauce
Tamari, as the “original” special form of Japanese soy sauce, is more similar to traditional Chinese soy sauce, which is produced using artisanal production methods. Tamari is traditionally made without wheat. It has a denser structure, a darker color and a stronger but milder taste. Tamari does not lose its flavor at high temperatures. Because regular soy sauce is made from half wheat, it contains more aromatic flavor notes in the form of alcohols and esters, which evaporate at high temperatures.
The first company to produce Tamari soy sauce is San-J. If you have a wheat allergy, tamari can be a good alternative to shoya.
Taiwanese-style soy sauces
The history of soy sauce production in Taiwan, which has its own specialties, dates back to China and Japan. Taiwan’s soy sauce culture is slightly different from mainland China. Taiwan-style sauces can be divided into wheat soy sauce and black bean sauce. The former is similar to Japanese-style soy sauce and Chinese northern soy sauce, while the latter is closer to the traditional handmade Chinese sauce with the replacement of soybeans with black beans. Black bean soy sauce is a Taiwanese specialty.
Sweet soy sauce
Other types of soy sauce include, for example, Kecap Manis – this is a sweet Indonesian sauce that has a syrupy consistency. Adds sweetness, color and adds soy flavor.
Low sodium soy sauce
Low sodium soy sauce contains 35-40% less sodium than regular soy sauce. It is used when there is a need to reduce salt intake with regard to blood pressure and cardiovascular health.
Low sodium soy sauce has ingredients that compensate for the loss of flavor and loss of preservation when salt is reduced. It is not recommended to use unless necessary.
Gluten-free soy sauce
The growing popularity of soy sauce has also led to gluten-free versions becoming increasingly available. You will almost always find this information prominently displayed on the product label.
Benefits of soy sauces
A study by the National University of Singapore showed that Chinese dark soy sauce contains ten times more antioxidants than red wine and can help prevent cardiovascular disease. It is rich in lactic acid bacteria and has excellent anti-allergic potential.
The nutritional content varies depending on the variety of soy sauce and the ingredients used to make it.
It contains more than 300 different flavor compounds that provide a balanced complexity of flavors, many of which can mask fishy odors and add a spicy flavor to food.
Soy sauce enhances food by giving it an umami flavor thanks to glutamic acid, which is one of the amino acids found in soy sauce.
When heated while frying or grilling meat marinated in soy sauce, the sauce creates a rich, glossy color on the food that stimulates the appetite.
