Dark Soy Sauce, an Essential in Thai Cooking
Two years ago my friend Pom arranged for me to visit the Junsaeng soy sauce factory in Thalang, Phuket. I was fortunate to learn firsthand about their establishment and how soy sauce is made. Out of four soy sauce factories in Phuket, it is the only one still in business. I hope the video below will help you understand how soy sauce is made.
There are two types of soy sauce: light and dark. The dark soy sauce is a little-known but very important ingredient in many dishes, such as Phad See Ew, Kee Meo and Lahd Nah Noodles. After Phad Thai, these are the best known Thai noodle dishes for Americans. The secret ingredient in these dishes is a good dark soy sauce. For me personally, I love the flavor of dark soy sauce in Singaporean Noodles and Hainan Chicken. The challenge is that most of my students know how to use light soy sauce, but few have had a chance to experience cooking with dark soy sauce. Moreover, a good dark soy sauce is hard to find in America. My favorite brand is from Indonesia.
Before teaching my Thai Comfort Foods class for PCC Cooks, I decided to create a homemade, gluten-free, dark soy sauce. I didn’t want students to have to turn the world upside down to find dark soy sauce, but even more importantly, is almost impossible to find one that is gluten-free. After a few experiments at home, I was happy with the results. My dark soy sauce recipe below was a success when I used it in stir-frying the noodles for my class. I hope that this recipe made it easier for you to cook Thai noodles at home. A few drops of dark soy sauce go a long way.
Dark Sauce
See Ew Dam
In America, good dark soy sauce is hard to find. I created this recipe to make it available for students as a substitute for store-bought dark soy sauce. It is an important ingredient for stir-fried noodles and rice dishes that require a sweet molasses-like soy sauce.
Yield: ¾ cup
¼ cup water 1 cup dark brown sugar ½ cup wheat-free soy saucePlace water and brown sugar in a heavy-bottom sauce pan and bring to a boil over a high heat. Stir until the sugar and water mix well together, then stop stirring completely. Let the sugar mixture cook on medium-low heat. Stand and watch the bubble. When it gets dark like coffee or molasses, pour in the soy sauce—be careful as there will be an eruption of bubbling liquid. Keep stirring until it becomes the consistency of molasses. Store in the refrigerator.
© 2010 Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen I Love Thai cooking Pranee teaches Thai Cooking classes in the Seattle area. Her website is: I Love Thai cooking.com .
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fantastic! thanks SOOOOOO much. I am GF but I love chinese cooking. This is a godsend 🙂
Do you think this might work with Grade B maple syrup?
We don’t know until we try! This might help people who allergy to soy. Please share your result. Thank you so much.
How do we make an unsweetened dark soy source? Most of my dish call for dark soy source. The one I find in the Asian market are sweet. Do you think putting corn flour into the thin soy sauce will do the trick ? Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question! But it is hard to answer your question. Please understand that I am trying. The dark soy sauce is not use in every dishes but when it does, likely we need the dark soy sauce to taste the way it is. Less sugar is best by using less dark soy sauce. Dark soy sauce has other name, sweet soy sauce or thick soy sauce. 90 % of the favor is a bunt taste of dark brown sugar (molasses) and 10% soy sauce taste. It is part of the flavor profile of the dish. There is not trick or other-way to do it, just use as little as you can or omit it. I don’t think it is about the thickness but the unique flavor that we have to preserve.
I have tried making the dark soy as you have listed. The problem I had is when I poured the now boiled water and brown sugar into the soy. Yes, it bubbled quite a bit but something else happened! The sugar became a hard lump around the spoon! So much so I could no longer take the spoon out because the now hardened lump of sugar around the spoon was bigger than the opening of the jar! lol. What I did then was to put the jar in a sauce pan of simmering water and kept stirring and stirring until the sugar melted and dissolved again. I’m not sure what will happen when it cools…but my question is: Why did the brown sugar and water become a hard lump in the soy and how do I avoid that in the future?? I hope you can help 🙂
Let do this, place all ingredients in the pot and reduce on medium heat until you get a maple syrup texture.
I agree with you that when we let the syrup get thicken, it is hard to dissolve the caramel, except that we might have to heat up the soy sauce before pouring it in.
I appreciate your time and hope this help. Thank you so much for your feedback. Pranee
Thank you for your reply Pranee! I will say this, that since I got the hard sugar melted in the soy and let it cool it did become very thick like syrup and all looks well. Your idea of putting all the ingredients in the same pot seems like a much better idea.I thought about doing this at first but wasn’t sure if heating up the soy also was a good thing to do, but now I will, along with the water and sugar. Thank you again for replying so quickly!
Thank you for understanding! Whatever easy to do first, then one can master the difficult way – the benefit of that is the burnt sugar gives a dark soy a unique taste.
Thank you for your time to give the feedback. I would like to encourage everyone to do these. It is mutual benefit and also for other.
Pranee, after re-reading your instructions to make dark soy I finally realized the mistake I made. Instead of pouring the soy IN the sugar mixture I poured the sugar mixture INTO the soy instead! I should have poured the soy a little at a time into the sugar mixture. But I didn’t. That is why the sugar hardened immediately. Now that I know this, I will try again once I finish with the first batch! Sorry for the confusion.
Bob
Thank you, how do you like the taste. My student loves it. It is hard to find a gluten-free dark soy sauce.
I liked it very much. I used in in a reciped for fried rice that I have. I substituted a bit of the regular soy with a teaspoon of dark soy. It gave it a hint of sweetness without over powering the saltiness of the regular soy. It was a great balance. Thank you so much for being patient with me. Though I cooked the water and sugar the way I was supposed to but made the error of pouring the sugared water into the soy instead of the other way around I still got the “burned” sugar flavor. It was great 🙂
I am glad to hear you like dark soy sauce, it is a sophisticated flavors from Southeast Asia. I talked to a friend from Indonesia, who said you can very much use it in many thing. He adds his to BBQ sauce as well …. I like to dip cooked chicken in dark soy sauce.
I may have not let the sugar/water cook long enough, but now that I’ve added the soy sauce, it’s not getting any thicker. Any suggestions/do you know how long each step roughly takes?
Just a minute or two longer. You will then get a thicker sauce. A little thinner than honey, thicker than maple syrub.
Wow, this is very close to the preparation for Vietnamese nuoc mau — with the exception of the added soy sauce at the end (nuoc mau is just straight caramelized sugar sauce). I’m so happy because I didn’t want to buy a huge bottle of sweet dark soy sauce for a single recipe, but I always have some nuoc mau in the fridge (my husband is Vietnamese) so I’m jazzed it appears I can just add some soy sauce to it 🙂
Thank you, Suri for recognizing it. The process of making dark or sweet soy sauce are very similar to nuoc mau. I love both, but this recipe work better for Thai and Chinese dishes with gluten-free option.
How long can you keep a batch of home made dark soy in the fridge ?
I think it should be good for a month. It may get thicker over time.
Thanks!
Pranee
Pranee, I’m thinking molasses with soy sauce would also make a good substitute for dark soy and save you the hassle of heating it into a syrup. What do you think?
-Ray
That is a good suggestion, I didn’t find any molasses brand that I like. I still recommend to bring them to a boil to combine.
Thank you so much for this recipe!
You are very welcome
While searching for Dark Soy Sauce substitutes online, I was directed to your site..
I like the idea of home made as compared to store bought sauces in Asian recipes..
In the comment section I see you were asked how long the sauce will keep in the fridge, to which you replied that it should keep for a month..
While I enjoy Asian dishes, I do not find Dark Soy Sauce to be something I’d use too frequently…so… my question is this… Can the sauce be frozen, such as in cubes of 2 or 3 teaspoons, without destroying taste, texture, etc.?
Thank you Ross, I love sweet soy sauce. I use it in Thai cooking and also to garnish fried, grilled or steamed chicken dishes. It is also easy to make anytime you need it. You may freeze them and incorporate in the dish as ingredients require but for presentation it is better fresh or from the fridge. Thank you.
I made this yesterday and used the sauce in a pan fried noodle recipe… I had made the recipe a few times using standard soy sauce and this time the depth of flavors was, simply amazing… Excellent recipe and I thank you… :O)
Thank you for letting us know. I have jar made from Muscovado sugar (a.k.a. Barbados sugar). I hope you have a chance to try.
Thank you for your recipe. I am gluten free and this has helped so much. I needed Dark Soy Sauce for a Mongolian Beef recipe. I was able to find gluten free Hoisin Sauce but no gluten free dark soy. I made it for a dinner party and it was a great success.
Thank you for your note and I am glad that it is useful and delicious. I love them as well and always have some in the fridge. There is no preservative.
Pranee
[…] a splash of molasses and pinch of dark brown sugar to your soy sauce. I also found a very simple recipe for dark soy sauce if you decide that you’ll use it more than once and can’t find it in your […]