Guide to OYSTER SAUCE + Tasting Cheap VS Premium!

If you love cooking Asian food, oyster sauce is probably already sitting in your kitchen. But do you know if the one you have is “a good one”?  And is expensive oyster sauce you did or didn't buy worth the splurge? This post will discuss everything you need to know about oyster sauce, including what it is, how to use it, and which brand is the best after tasting them straight up AND in a stir fry!

00:42 What is oyster sauce?
01:20 What is the best oyster sauce - taste test.
04:14 What can labels tell us?
06:42 Oyster sauce consistency. Thick vs thin?
06:57 Tasting vegetarian oyster sauce
08:17 Tasting premium vs cheap oyster sauce in a stir fry
10:41 Oyster sauce storage tips

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About Pai:

Pailin “Pai” Chongchitnant is the author of the Hot Thai Kitchen cookbook, co-host of a Canadian TV series One World Kitchen on Gusto TV, and creator and host of the YouTube channel Pailin's Kitchen.

Pai was born and raised in southern Thailand where she spent much of her "playtime" in the kitchen. She traveled to Canada to study Nutritional Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and was later trained as a chef at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in San Francisco.

[PailinsKitchen]

Sawaddee Ka! A couple of notes: If I didn't include a brand here, it's because it's not available and I have not tried them so I cannot tell you how they stack up.

Related videos I mentioned:



If you still have questions you can post it here for the community to answer, or tweet me on Twitter @hotthaikitchen, or refer to the contact page on my website. If you leave questions in the comments I may not see them due to the large volume of comments.

As always, thank you for watching! - Pai

[OB-LA]

Hi Pailin! Over my years of working in kitchens a great tip I’ve learned for taste comparison of ingredients is to dilute with a bit of water and taste again after the initial tasting. It will cut some of the salt, allowing your palate to pick up and compare more of the underlying flavors, much in the same way that when tasting spirits diluting with a bit of water cuts the bite of the alcohol, allowing more perception of flavor. I use this technique a lot, especially after tasting the ingredient on its own as you have. Love the channel, keep it coming!

[Nocturne]

The lady on the boat - I knew she was gonna slay the competition!

[_Uh_Oh_]

I've bought the "lady in the boat" sauce here in the UK before and it was really delicious. As you say, you could definitely just use it as a dip by itself. Sweet & thick and lovely taste.

[fialee]

Your "Lady on the Boat" is often called "old style" oyster sauce. That is also my preferred oyster sauce. It is prob the closest to the original Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce flavor (and as you pointed out early, he's the inventor of the sauce).

[frankfagnano]

Thank you for demystifying all of these different oyster sauces, especially for somebody who is just trying to learn Asian cooking and has no clue what they're doing. I have a couple different bottles of oyster sauces, along with a bottle of the "Lady-in-the-Boat" kind of sauce that I got because of watching J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and it seemed like the right thing to do. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but thank you for letting me know. It is greatly appreciated from a total novice such as myself

[echris]

Thanks for your review! Incidentally, I only recently discovered the difference between the Panda and "Boat Lady" brand distinction this past weekend at the Asian grocery store. I assumed that both were the same because of the Lee Kum Kee brand. I've picked up the Panda brand ones not because of the price, but because it came in a much larger bottle so I figured it would last longer. During this past trip, I picked up a few but then did a double take when I saw that the Boat Lady brand was on sale. This led me to take a closer look at the Panda label to discover that it was marketed not as oyster sauce, but "oyster-flavored sauce." Checking and seeing that the oyster extract was so low on the ingredient list made me put back the three bottles I had in my cart and swap them out for three of the Boat lady.

[befuddled]

I totally LOVE your tip at the end to maximize the contents of the bottle. As an Italian, we always rinse/wash our cans and bottles of tomato passata to get every last drop out! Great presentation and very easy to follow. Thank you so much! ❤

[hidavidhuang]

Bravo! I have been waiting for this oyster sauce comparison video for years! Glad you made it for all of us! Thank you!

[vltree]

To make it easier to pour out from the glass bottle, I add a bit of Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing for example) and mix it in with a chopstick, to thin it down. That is an ingredient I typically add to all dishes anyway, and I think the alcohol helps preserve the sauce as well. As a condiment straight up, the alcohol is barely noticeable.

[JorgedelasAlas]

The difference in prices between the premium oyster sauces and the affordable brands is like heaven and earth. The same goes for soy sauces (vinegars are more forgiving). For fish sauce, I prefer Thai brands. I'm Filipino, BTW. For everyday cooking, we use the cheaper brands, while we use the "good stuff" on special occasions.

[xabo]

I love when you make these test videos! Helps me out a lot, when I go shopping for my thai recipes. 😊

[petesepiceats]

For vegetarian oyster sauce, try to get your hands on the Chan Moon Kee brand. I swear it tastes so much like real oyster sauce, yet is from mushrooms. While I still use genuine oyster sauce most often, I do occasionally use the CMK vegetarian version. For my niece with severe food allergies, I use the CMK vegetarian version because it’s soy-free.

[RayMak]

Love this comparison so much. So detail

[andersonomo]

Yes, 'lady on the boat' is more expensive - but here in Australia it's about the same price as an 'everyday' (aka cheap) bottle of wine, or a MacDonald's burger - but it lasts WAY WAY longer than both, is higher quality with better ingredients, tastes better and you can often get it on sale. Well worth the couple of extra dollars over the cheap ones IMHO!

[kenguyen]

First time viewer and I love how educational this is! More info about Asian cooking and ingredients is always appreciated

[michaelmcnally]

All your videos are fantastic, but these ingredient ones are extremely valuable.

[nancychan]

The lady on the boat is what my parents used and what I have always used. Drizzle over Gai Lan, or in cooking. A staple in our kitchen!

[loonyTlu]

The squeeze bottle is a great tip! This is something I’m going to do with several thicker condiments.

[ianbruce]

I just discovered this series, and it's been incredibly useful to me. I'll be producing a line of nutritionally-enhanced cooking sauces for poorer, rural asian consumers, and wouldn't know a good oyster sauce (or fish sauce, etc.) from a bad one. While nothing's going to align my palette with that of my target market, making fewer mistakes from the beginning should greatly help to expedite recipe-building and focus-group testing. Thank you, Pailin. 😊🙏🙏