Best Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Best Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

Teriyaki (照り焼き) is a Japanese culinary technique that involves cooking a protein and then glazing it in a sweet and savory sauce. Teri (照り) means shiny or glossy in Japanese, and yaki (焼き) refers to any high-temperature cooking method such as grilling, roasting, or pan-frying. The key to making an authentic Teriyaki Sauce from scratch is to balance sweet, savory, and umami tastes while ensuring the sauce stays clear and glossy. It only requires three basic ingredients of Japanese cuisine that you probably have in your pantry.

Jump to:

• Best Homemade Teriyaki Sauce
• Why This Teriyaki Sauce Recipe Works
• Ingredients for Teriyaki Sauce
• Don't Add These Ingredients
• How to Make Teriyaki Sauce
• How to Use Teriyaki Sauce
• Other Teriyaki Recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• FAQ
• Comments

Why This Teriyaki Sauce Recipe Works

• This simple sauce comes together from just three pantry staples. Adding ingredients such as garlic, ginger, fruit juice, or sesame oil will cloud it and make it lose its shine. 
• Teriyaki glaze is thickened by boiling it until the sugar starts to caramelize. This makes it thick and shiny and gives it a marvelous flavor. No thickeners, like corn starch, are necessary and you can make a thicker sauce by reducing it more and a thinner sauce by reducing it less.
• By premixing all of the ingredients together and storing them in the refrigerator, it's ready to be used at any time, and it will keep for several months.

Ingredients for Teriyaki Sauce

• Sugar - Sugar adds a balancing sweetness. It also caramelizes as the teriyaki boils down, giving it its distinctive depth of flavor. I use evaporated cane sugar because it has more flavor than white granulated sugar. You can substitute other sweeteners such as maple syrup, honey, or light brown sugar. I don't recommend using dark brown sugar or molasses because the taste can overpower the other ingredients.
• Soy sauce - Any dark Japanese soy sauce (shoyu), such as Kikkoman, will work. Make sure you're using Japanese-style shoyu. If you want to cut back on the amount of salt, you can use a reduced sodium version.
• Sake - Sake is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting rice. Proteolytic enzymes break down the protein in the rice into amino acids, which are perceived as umami by your taste buds. The sake also contributes some aromas to the Teriyaki Sauce. Since alcohol turns to vapor at a lower temperature than water, the alcohol will be gone once it's cooked. As for the type of sake, any cheap drinking sake will work. Don't use "cooking sake" because these tend to have salt and other additives that will impact the flavor. I often see rice vinegar suggested as a substitute, but this will not work. It's great for salads and pickles, but rice vinegar has undergone the final stage of fermentation converting the alcohol into acetic acid while eliminating most of the amino acids in the sake. This will not only make it sour; it won't add any umami, which is the whole purpose of adding sake in the first place.
• NOTE: I don't add mirin to my teriyaki because real brewed mirin is hard to find outside Japan. Most sweet rice wine brands are just alcohol, corn syrup, and MSG. If you do have real mirin, you can substitute it for the sake, and then halve the sugar.

Don't Add These Ingredients

For the best Japanese teriyaki sauce, don't add any ingredients that dull its luster. Many Westernized versions contain extra ingredients like ginger or garlic. If you must add them, I recommend using them in a marinade or as a garnish.

• Aromatics - fresh garlic, fresh ginger, green onions, and onions are non-traditional additions that will cloud the glaze. If you want to add these flavors to your dish, grate them and use the mixture to marinate your protein before cooking it. If you add a lot, you'll want to scrape it off the meat before cooking it.
• Fruit Juice - orange juice, apple juice, pineapple juice, etc. These will cloud the teriyaki and make it sour.
• Seeds - Sesame seeds are best used as a garnish once your dish is finished.
• Vinegar - Teriyaki shouldn't be sour, so don't add Japanese rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, etc.

How to Make Teriyaki Sauce

To make my 3-ingredient Teriyaki Sauce, add equal parts sugar, soy sauce, and sake to a jar or bottle. Seal the lid and shake the mixture for a minute or two until the sugar dissolves.

This can also be done in a bowl with a whisk. There is no need to heat this mixture since it will be cooked later. You can make a large batch and refrigerate it until you're ready to use it. It can be stored in the refrigerator for a few months.

How to Use Teriyaki Sauce

• Teriyaki - To use this easy teriyaki sauce, pan-fry your favorite protein (chicken thighs, chicken breast, beef, pork, salmon, tofu, etc.) until it is almost fully cooked. Wipe out any oil from the pan. Then, add a few tablespoons of homemade teriyaki sauce for each serving of protein and boil it, repeatedly flipping your protein over to glaze it as it thickens.
• Marinade - Marinate your favorite fish, meat, poultry, or tofu for a few hours with this teriyaki marinade before you broil or grill it. Keep in mind that the sugar content will make it burn easily, so you'll need to adjust your heat source accordingly.
• Stir-fry - This easy Teriyaki Sauce recipe can be used as a seasoning for stir-fries. Just stir-fry as you normally would, and drizzle the teriyaki in at the end.
• Condiment - If you want to use this as a dipping sauce, such as for sushi or steak, you can pre-thick it by pouring it into a pot over high heat and boiling it until it becomes thick and syrupy. Let it cool, and then it can stored in an airtight container such as a squeeze bottle or mason jar.

Other Teriyaki Recipes

I have a ton of easy recipes that use this delicious Teriyaki Sauce, some of my favorite recipes are Teriyaki Meatballs, Teriyaki Rice Balls, and Teriyaki Chicken Wings. Check out a complete list of my Teriyaki Recipes if you'd like to explore all the possibilities of this easy homemade Teriyaki Sauce.

📖 Recipe

FAQ

What is Teriyaki?

Teriyaki is a Japanese cooking technique used to cook and glaze proteins with a savory-sweet sauce.

What is Teriyaki Sauce made of?

Teriyaki is generally made from sugar, shoyu, and sake (or mirin), and it's thickened by boiling the ingredients until it becomes thick and syrupy.

How do you pronounce Teriyaki?

Teriyaki is a 4-syllable name pronounced as follows (read the italicized parts).

te like ten

ri -the “ri” sound does not exist in the English language, but the best way to make it is to say the word "ream" with the tip of your tongue at the front of your mouth.

ya like yacht

ki like key

Is Teriyaki Sauce vegan?

Yes, this teriyaki is vegan and vegetarian friendly, and it can be used to season vegetables, mushrooms, or your favorite plant-based protein.

Is Teriyaki Sauce gluten-free?

Teriyaki made with regular shoyu is not gluten-free. However, you can easily make a gluten-free teriyaki sauce by substituting tamari in place of the soy sauce.

How do you thicken Teriyaki?

Teriyaki does not need a cornstarch slurry to thicken it. Instead, the thickness comes from reducing it until the sugar starts to caramelize. This thickens it into a glossy glaze and adds a nutty complexity.

Can I skip the sake?

Sake is added to impart umami and flavor. It is essential to create its distinctive taste. For those of you who are concerned about the alcohol in sake: ethanol has a lower boiling point than water, so the alcohol in the sake will evaporate in the same way that the alcohol in shoyu (it contains 2-3% alcohol) will evaporate when you cook it.