What Is Oyster Sauce? And How Do You Cook With It?

Oyster sauce stands on your own! With the shake of a bottle, I can bless just about any pile of meat and vegetables with levels of elaborate salty-sweet umami flavor. What would Phat Sii Krong Neua or this Hen and Corn Stir-Fry be devoid of a dollop of the fantastic things? And just Thinking about likely back to spaghetti (of course, spaghetti!) sans oyster sauce gets me all grumpy facial area emoji.

Nonetheless, what is this magical brown sauce? Is it actually built of, perfectly, oysters? And how can 1 start out deploying it at home?

For starters, oyster sauce is thought to have been invented totally by accident. In 1888 Chinese food items stall operator Lee Kum Sheung still left a pot of oyster soup on to simmer for so extensive that it cooked down into a thick brown paste. Sheung took a cheeky flavor, not seeking to squander a comprehensive pot of food items, and recognized his caramelized concoction was wealthy, tremendous savory, and properly delicious. So he called it “oyster sauce” and started serving it to his consumers as a seasoning before going on to package and provide it underneath the now-iconic Lee Kum Kee Asian sauce empire.

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Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce

Superior news: These times, oyster sauce is just about everywhere. So seize a bottle, kiss it on the cap, and use it to make any dish a superior model of by itself. Go wild! Experiment! Like the sauce alone, all the greatest factors materialize when you’re minimum anticipating them.

Is the grocery store stuff produced of oysters as well?

This is just one of those ever more scarce instances in which a foods merchandise is, drumroll, as marketed. Even 133 decades after Sheung’s discovery, Lee Kum Kee (as perfectly as Kikkoman) is still building their sauces with anything called “oyster extractives” (derived from oysters, h2o, and salt), along with sugar, salt, corn starch, flour, coloring, and my favored ingredient, monosodium glutamate (MSG)—which is the same seasoning that makes Great Ranch Doritos so difficult to stop ingesting. Also known as oyster-flavored sauce, be certain to check the label ahead of you buy—the kinds well worth their brine will comprise extracts designed from serious shellfish.

Alongside with a jolt of flavor, oyster sauce adds a dim caramel colour to any dish, which, according to assistant meals editor Jessie YuChen, is referred to as “the sauce color” in Mandarin. It is a shade you will observe in numerous Chinese dishes like stir-fried broccoli, Cantonese beef chow enjoyment, and lo mein. No matter if the colour is coming from soy, oyster, or a different brown sauce like hoisin, it is a absolutely sure indication a dish is likely to be delicious. The equation is basic, according to YuChen: “Brown = sauce = flavor.”

What does oyster sauce style like?

Contrary to fish sauce, which is decidedly fishy, lick a dollop of oyster sauce off your finger and you won’t assume, “Wow, oysters!” But it is “absolutely loaded with flavor,” according to test kitchen area director Chris Morocco. It is sweet. And salty. But the flavors operate further than that. The sweetness is not one particular-famous or cloying it’s darkish and formulated, like caramel. The saltiness is significantly less like desk salt and much more like ocean water (“in a good way,” suggests YuChen). And, type of like anchovies, all that oyster taste lends tons of umami and abundant savoriness to the sauce. “It’s like four sauces in 1,” says senior meals editor Christina Chaey.

Oyster sauce undoubtedly packs a punch, but to Morocco, it’s a perfectly well balanced a person that hits each and every take note evenly. “It confers tons of flavor [to sauces, stir-fries, and dressings], with out overpowering the other substances,” he suggests.

How do you cook dinner with oyster sauce?

A functional condiment for Asian cooking and past, oyster sauce can fortunately stand on your own or blend into the crowd. However you use it, a minor goes a extended way. “I only end off swiftly cooked meat and/or veg with a plop of oyster sauce and call it a working day,” states Chaey. But it’s also really significantly confirmed to be delightful whisked into a marinade for steak or any meat drizzled on steamed greens spooned into meaty braises or soups or additional to your dumpling fillings and stir-fries.

A lot more of a recipe kinda male? Listed here are some of our oyster sauce-y faves:

Which models of oyster sauce are the best?

Of study course, not all oyster sauce is produced equivalent! Throughout the board our food items editors desire Lee Kum Kee’s Premium Oyster Sauce for that OG savory flavor. It’s “the stability blanket of my condiment cupboard,” states Chaey. (In accordance to the Lee Kum Kee web site, if you want a milder taste, check out their Panda Manufacturer Oyster Sauce.) YuChen also recommends Kikkoman’s Oyster Flavored Sauce, or Wan Ja Shan’s vegetarian mushroom-based riff for the shellfish-averse.

Lee Kum Kee Panda Manufacturer Oyster Sauce

Kikkoman Oyster Flavored Sauce

Wan Ja Shan Vegetarian Mushroom Oyster Sauce

What can be used as an alternative of oyster sauce?

While there genuinely is nothing quite like oyster sauce out there, if your nearby supermarket is fresh out of the good stuff and you’re in a bind, pick out your own experience:

1. Sub in the vegan “brown sauce” in this Bok Choy With Brown Sauce and Crispy Garlic recipe by Fats Choy chef and operator Justin Lee.
2. Decide for the Indonesian sweet soy sauce Kecap Manis, which has the same starchy-thick texture and a in the same way sweet-salty flavor, just with out the shellfish-y notes.
3. Use a dark (aged) soy sauce, or anything like Healthier Boy Model Mushroom Soy Sauce, which has related transformative power—albeit a diverse flavor.