How to choose the right soy sauce

[redtrooper]

What a wealth of information! Thanks Kenji.

[fordhouseb]

For those unfamiliar with kecap manis, the thick sweet Indonesian soy sauce, if you have eaten Indomie Mi Goreng instant noodles, it is basically the thick dark sauce that comes with the seasoning packets. So if you have ever licked your fingers after opening those annoying little things, you know exactly what it tastes like!

[listofromantics]

I don't know what's more impressive: Kenji's "off the dome" knowledge of soy sauce varieties OR the truly staggering volume of different soy sauce choices in this grocery store.

[MangoMotors]

That was a very excellent coverage of japanese soy sauces. Thank you for teaching me something new today!

I will say, you missed Korean soy sauces. Korean soy sauces are interesting because they actually have different soy sauces for different aplications, such as soups, stir fries, and uncooked cooked (like salads).

[jeremylow]

Wanted to add a bit of context to the Chinese soy sauce. Traditionally, there are 2 phases to the soy sauce making. The product from the first phase/batch is the light soy sauce. After that, molasses is added and the soy sauce is left to ferment longer, which gives it the much darker color. The molasses is both a sweetener and a thickening agent, and along with the longer timeframe, less water content result in a thicker soy sauce. Use it for coloring and adding a slightly more complex flavoring, e.g. in noodles stir fry for the darker color, or in braises and stews. If you have to pick one, just use the light soy sauce. If your store have limited varieties, the Japanese dark soy sauce (the common Kikkoman one) is pretty much equivalent (in cooking) to the Chinese light soy sauce.

[nabokovfan]

This is the stuff they just don't teach people who are actually passionate about food. Appreciate it. Do more!!!!

[hardvice]

Thai soy sauces would also be good to mention — you *can* sub for them, but they’re unique enough to be worth it if you cook a lot of Thai. White (usually labeled “light” or “thin”) is similar enough to koikuchi shoyu or Chinese light, but a little sweeter and more rounded. Black is tougher to sub — it’s thick like kecap manis but not quite as sweet. It’s mostly used for color, though, so you *can* sub, but it’s really not salty at all so you need to be a bit careful. For Japan, saishikomi shoyu is my favorite but it’s more used as a condiment than an ingredient. Well worth trying, though — it’s double fermented (i.e. the salt and water is replaced with shoyu) and has a very intense umami flavor. Speaking of, when you want to pack in the umami without too much salt, the “seasoned” or “seasoning” sauces are great. They have a little sugar, MSG, and MSG’s two best buddies, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate. Weirdly great in western food where you don’t want it to scream soy sauce. The Chinese ones usually come in a lantern-shaped bottle; the Thai ones are very nice (I really like Golden Mountain), and in a pinch Knorr Liquid Seasoning and Maggi Seasoning are widely available in western grocery stores.

[davidthomas]

It's crazy how succinct and well explained all of this is. Imo Kenji is the de facto food educator on youtube for mid to advance home chefs.

[jds]

I learnt so much again in less than 5 minutes, thank you! Just started with your book "The food lab" ❤ I cook every day since 3 decades, but I don't have a good knowledge about why certain things work and others not, I am sure my cooking will improve a ton over reading!

[soap]

That was fun and informative. Do more segments like this.

[marto]

I would love some sort of kenji-voiced pokedex app or physical device to take grocery and even cookware shopping so we can have these lil nugs of info to turn every shopping experience into one of wonder and learning

[paulvolleyball]

Also korean soy sauces!! Very similar to the others but three main styles:

Yangjo - Naturally brewed, higher grade high soy content (Go to choice for general cooking)

Jin - Yangjo mixed with artificial soy sauce, taste similar to Yangjo but "lower" quality and cheaper

Guk - Highly concentrated/ rich flavoured used for soups

Future Neighbour has an excellent blog post explaining these and even more details about how they use Total Nitrogen to grade their soy sauce

[dannagy]

I wish i had any shops with this level of availability within 100 miles.

[apefu]

I was so confused until Kenji started talking about Chinese soy sauces. I've been struggling with understanding dark/light soy sauce in recipes for decades. Turns out I need to know where the recipe is from to know what type of soy it means.
I kind of learned this on my own through trial and error, but I always felt a bit stressed about it.

[_SurferGeek_]

For folks that might be looking to avoid soy altogether, try San-J - No Soy Tamari.
It's made with pea and pea protein and is the closest I found to soy sauce taste.

[readyplayer]

The classic sweet Indonesian soy sauce, since you didn't give the name, is called kecap manis. There's also kecap asin (unsweetened) and kecap hitam (dark) soy sauces, and a fish sauce called kecap ikon. The English word "ketchup" is believed to come from kecap (the same word is used in Malay), which may in turn have come from a Cantonese word; both Malaysia and Indonesia have a large population of ethnic Chinese. So when you reach for that bottle of Heinz, think about the linguistic and cultural travels involved!

[uniferunifies]

When are we getting a "how to choose the right jacket" video? Beceause clearly Kenji figured it out

[thegreatwal]

Kenji forgot to mention the cutest of all the Japanese soy sauces, kuchi-goochy-goo

[TheChumm]

Great video but I do think a quick overview of Korean soup soy sauce vs regular would have been useful. Shoutout Senpio 501 that stuff goes hard and is reasonably priced.

[nancycy]

Kenji, you are terrific at explaining clearly and succinctly. Thank you!
btw, when you are showing a product, it would be helpful to hold it steady so we can see the label, vs gesticulating while it’s in your hand, which makes it bounce up and down and side to side.