Three Types of Soy Sauce That You Must Know About

Soy sauce. The condiment used in almost every Asian household for years. It's old, soy sauce has been around for over 2,200 years ago - originating during the Western Han Dynasty in China. Japan, Korea, and Indonesian too have their own versions of soy sauce, and the condiment has now spread across East and Southeast Asia, and many other parts of the Western and European continents.

The art of soy sauce making is a long process: prepping the soy beans, and then on to a long fermentation process to get the sweet, salty liquid gold. There's also many other forms of soy sauce out there - light soy sauces, dark soy sauces and sweet soy sauces.

But we're not going to get into the process of how to make the different types of soy sauce, here's three types of soy sauces and how you can use them for everyday cooking.

How To: Use the Different Types of Soy Sauce

A quick tldw (too long don't watch) on how to use the different types of soy sauce:

Light Soy Sauce

Viscosity (sticky or liquid): Thin, very liquid

Taste: Salty 

Commonly used in stir fry & marinades, here's how to: porridge so you can pair your soy sauce with it.

Or try out our delicious and easy keto cauliflower porridge recipe and enhance its flavours with a dash of light soy sauce. Chicken rice porridge recipe here for the non-keto fans.

Dark Soy Sauce

Viscosity (sticky or liquid): Thin, liquid

Taste: Less salty than light soy sauce

Commonly used in stews or marinates. The difference between light and dark soy sauce is that light soy sauce is used more commonly as a dipping sauce/condiment, whereas dark soy sauce is used to add colour and flavour to the dish. Dark soy sauce is also less salty, a little thicker than light soy sauce. 

Try out our addictive Eggs in Soy Broth (also known as Mayak Gyeran) recipe here, so good you won't stop at just one egg. 

Thick (Sweet) Soy Sauce

Viscosity (sticky or liquid): Thick, very sticky

Taste: Sweet

Commonly used in stir & dipping, it's a completely different taste from light soy sauce, thick dark soy sauce is very commonly used in Singaporean dishes like Char Kway Teow & Black Carrot Cake.

Sweet soy sauce is also used as a dipping sauce for many chinese dishes, like Hainanese Chicken Rice. Our Keto-Friendly Chicken Rice here for the keto fans out there. 

And if you're the adventurous cook, try out our Rice Cooker Chicken Recipe to pair with sweet soy sauce, equally delicious. 

Pro Tip: Chop up some garlic and chili padi for an added oomph in your condiment. 
 

Don't let us stop you there - here's a list of 10 Simply Delicious Soy Sauce recipes for you to try out, now that you're armed with the new found knowledge and inspiration on how to use three different types of soy sauce.