Teriyaki Sauce

Use as a marinade and table sauce with grilled steaks or for any recipe calling for Teriyaki Sauce. For a grilling marinade, see Teriyaki Marinade which uses oil in the recipe (not traditional) to make a marinade for chicken, beef, pork, or salmon. The oil helps keep the meat from burning when using traditional Western grilling methods.

Recipe using Teriyaki Sauce: Teriyaki Beef Sticks, an appetizer often found on Pu Pu Platters.
Also see Teriyaki Beef and Shrimp Teriyaki Stir Fry (main dishes)

Some History

Teriyaki is a cooking technique used in Japanese cuisine in which foods are broiled or grilled in a sweet soy sauce marinade (tare in Japanese). 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. Fish (yellowtail, marlin, skipjack tuna, salmon, trout, and mackerel) is mainly used in Japan, while meat (chicken, pork, lamb and beef, as well as salmon) is more often used in the West and the ingredients in the sauce are a little different. 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. It's also often used as a dip for potstickers.

The Westernized version of teriyaki probably came to us via Japanese immigrants to Hawaii, where brown sugar is much more commonly available than rice. Hawaiian teriyaki also sometimes contains pineapple juice or green onions. (The enzyme bromelain in pineapple juice is a useful addition to a marinade, as it tenderizes red meat.) This version of teriyaki is now a popular part of Hawaiian cuisine; the sauce served at a luau is more likely to be teriyaki than American-style barbecue sauce.

Kikkoman, the world-famous Japanese soy sauce company, cites Hawaiian teriyaki as the inspiration for the bottled teriyaki "sauce" that it introduced to the American market in 1961. Years later the company introduced a second version of teriyaki that used corn starch (now "modified food starch") to create a much thicker basting sauce. Other manufacturers followed suit, and thicker teriyaki is now a common sight in supermarkets. Its viscosity made teriyaki more popular as a dipping sauce, and even as a table sauce like ketchup.

Teriyaki Sauce

The word teriyaki derives from the noun teri, which refers to a shine or luster given by the mirin or sake, and from the caramelization of the sugar, and yaki, which refers to the cooking method of grilling or broiling. Originally the sauce was applied in the last stages of cooking, and proper preparation involved repeated applications of the sauce during the later stages of cooking until the sauce thickens and acquires luster, but does not burn. More recently it is also used as a marinade before cooking. The tare is traditionally made by mixing and heating soy sauce, sake or mirin, and sugar or honey. The sauce is boiled and reduced to the desired thickness, then used to marinate meat which is then grilled or broiled. Sometimes ginger is added, and the final dish may be garnished with green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

The sauce used to make teriyaki has four main components: soy sauce, sake (or mirin, if you're taking it easy on the booze), sugar and ginger. It's more or less your basic Asian seasoning/marinade. Soak meat, vegetables, fish or tofu in for at least half an hour before cooking. If you decide to reduce the mixture, it will get thick, glossy and sticky — more like a sauce and better for topping or serving on the side.

1/2 cup Japanese shoyu (soy sauce) [I like to use tamari soy sauce, it has a sweeter, and less salty, taste]
1/2 cup mirin* [I usually use dry sherry - add a little sugar to make up the loss of sweetness from the mirin]
2 Tbsp. honey
2 tsp. sesame oil
2 Tbsp. fresh grated ginger (1 tsp. dried ground ginger)
2 tsp. grated garlic
2 tsp. sesame seeds, toasted (optional)

To use as a marinade and basting sauce, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until honey is dissolved. Use immediately or cool and refrigerate. To prepare a teriyaki dish, dip thinly sliced meat or pieces of fish or shrimp in sauce and grill or pan-fry. Coat the meat with the sauce several times during cooking and allow to thicken and become shiny.

To make a table sauce, bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook until thickened enough to coat a spoon, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool, and use immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Optional: If the sauce is not thick enough, dissolve 2 teaspoons/10 mL cornstarch in 2 tablespoons/30 mL water. Turn heat up to medium high and add mixture, stir in for 30 seconds to activate the cornstarch.

*The key ingredient in teriyaki sauce is mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine), which has been in use for over four hundred years. It is a thicker, sweeter version of sake (rice wine) which is made by fermenting steamed mochigome rice, komekoji (rice yeast), and shochu (Japanese liquor). This fermentation produces sugar as well as alcohol. The sweeteners in the mirin adds luster to the teriyaki sauce when it is cooked. It is clear or light gold in color and is usually sold in bottles. There are two types of mirin: hon mirin (contains almost 14 percent alcohol) and shin mirin (contains one percent alcohol but has a similar flavor and is more commonly used). If you don't have mirin, you can use sake or dry sherry with a pinch of sugar added to it.