If you love eating and making Chinese food, but wonder why your home cooked meals don't have the same color, depth, and flavor as restaurant or takeout, I'm here to tell you! The secret ingredient is *dark* soy sauce. Soy sauce is a fairly common ingredient, and regular soy sauce is well known to most home cooks, but have you heard of dark soy sauce?
What is dark soy sauce?
Dark soy sauce 老抽 or lǎo chōu is a thick, super opaque, slightly sweet soy sauce. Like light or regular soy sauce, it's for flavoring, but more so for adding that classic caramel color to a variety of dishes. It is darker than regular soy sauce because it has been aged longer.
What is the difference between dark and light soy sauce?
- light soy sauce, also known as soy sauce, is light in color, almost transparent reddish-brown in color and thin in viscosity. It is savory and delicious and essential to Chinese cooking. It is used both for seasoning and for dipping.
- dark soy sauce it is thicker, darker, and tastes slightly less salty than regular/light soy sauce. It is almost black and looks like soy sauce, but reduced. It is to flavor, but mainly to color dishes. The color comes from a longer fermentation of the soybeans and it also has a very mild sweetness.
What is the sauce for?
It is mainly used in braised dishes such as three cup chicken, stir fried noodles such as pancetta bork and fried kale noodles, and stir fried noodles such as lo mein. You only need a little, but it adds so much color and flavor!
Brands
There are two main brands that we prefer:
As a general rule of thumb, choose naturally brewed, "superior," or "premium" soy sauce.
Where to buy
You can almost always find it in Asian supermarkets or online. Sometimes a well-stocked grocery store can have you in the international aisle.
Substitute for dark soy sauce
There's no real substitute for it, but if you don't have dark soy sauce, you can omit it or add a little more regular soy sauce. Your final dish won't have the same color and flavor you intended, but it won't ruin your dish. Warning: reducing regular soy sauce will not achieve the same effect.
How to use
Most Chinese recipes call for a combination of light and dark soy sauces to achieve a balance between flavor, color, and salt content. If you use only light soy sauce, your dish will be salty, but very light in color and not balanced in flavor. If you use only dark soybeans, your dish will end up with a strong, very dark flavor. Use light soy sauce to add salt and add a little dark soy to enhance umami and color.
