The Ultimate Soy Sauce Fried Rice (2024)

FAQs

What is the best soy sauce for fried rice? ›

Dark Soy Sauce

When cooking fried rice, you'll want to use a darker soy sauce for sweeter caramel notes and to add that beautiful bronzed colour to your dish. A simple Chinese dark soy sauce will suffice.

Another downside of adding too much soy sauce or stir-fry sauce is that your fried rice can end up being way too salty or too sweet. If that's the case, just add a sprinkle of sugar to balance out the salt — for the opposite problem, add a dash of salt for the perfect balanced taste.

Fried rice is a traditional Chinese preparation of cooked rice, vegetables, protein, soy sauce, and aromatics.

DARK MUSHROOM SOY SAUCE

This soy sauce doesn't add much to the saltiness but is used to give dishes that nice caramel brown colour. Dark mushroom soy sauce also adds a hint of umami to a dish, but not much saltiness. You can opt not to use this but do note that the fried rice will be a pale brown.

The dark soy is used for colour, whilst the light soy is used for flavour. Mix the rice well to ensure the soy sauces are well distributed throughout. [Add extra ingredients here] Add the pre scrambled egg and break up in the pan using the spatula.

The better, more flavorful soy sauces are fermented longer, which allows the proteins in the soy (and wheat) to break down into the amino acids that lend the condiment its glutamate-rich content. Glutamates trigger the taste response we know as umami, or perception of savoriness.

You might think soy sauce would make the dish more flavorful, but that couldn't be further from the truth! When soy sauce is added to Japanese fried rice, it detracts from the flavor of the original dish. The soy sauce can make the rice soggy and overpower the taste of the other ingredients.

To give your dish that signature fried rice taste, you'll need to drizzle in sesame oil and soy sauce, but feel free to use as much or as little as you wish. You can even mix in things like garlic powder, ginger root, or Sriracha sauce and chili pepper for a bit of a kick.

Cooking bits of chopped vegetables, seasoning, soy sauce, and oil, seems easy enough. However, when making fried rice at home, there's one ingredient you may be overlooking: Sugar.

The answer: high heat, expert tosses, and something known as 'wok hei. ' As J. Kenji López-Alt writes for Serious Eats, expert cooking with a wok (and the gas range it requires) is one of the main reasons that fried rice from a Chinese restaurant tastes so much better than what you can make at home.

What gives Japanese fried rice its flavor? ›

Soy sauce: I created this recipe using low-sodium soy sauce. So add less if you're using traditional soy sauce. Oyster sauce: This is a major flavor booster in fried rice and (don't worry) doesn't taste like oysters. You can find it in the Asian section of grocery stores, or order it on Amazon.

Using natural fermentation methods, light soy sauce has strong aromatic umami and savoury flavour. Making it ideal as a marinade, dressing, sauce mix and table condiment. It is a great addition to stir-fry recipes, noodles dishes and even our own burger recipe!

As for brand, most people from China would probably use either LKK (Lee Kum Kee) or Haday. Lee Kum Kee (李錦記) is a very popular brand from Hong Kong. They make a range of sauces, including soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and chilli sauce, etc.

Next up, I'd recommend having a dark soy sauce in your cupboard. It's less salty than your regular light soy sauce, and has a darker, more intense colour. Because it's been aged for longer, it has a richer flavour, and therefore adds more depth to a dish.

The Best Soy Sauce for Your Kitchen

Ideally, though, you'll want to pick a soy sauce with no added MSG and as pure in flavor as you can get, such as San-J Tamari Soy Sauce and other Asian Cooking Sauces. After your purchase, experiment with several kinds of soy sauce as you test new healthier snacks and dishes at home.