Best for fried rice 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.
The traditional Chinese soy sauce fried rice uses a variety between light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. But it is quite hard to find outside China. We need to combine light soy sauce and dark soy sauce to achieve both taste and color goals.
Dark mushroom soy sauce is what gives this fried rice its rich brown/caramel colour. 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.
There are a few different seasonings that make fried rice taste just right. The most important sauces to add are soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in fried rice. All three add unique flavors to rice, but it can be easy to go overboard.
Kikkoman's Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce is considered a dark soy sauce in Japan.
Soy Sauces Used By Restaurants
There is no light or dark soy sauce in the list, which means Chinese restaurants do not use Chinese light or dark soy sauce in general. They use all-purpose soy sauces instead. The soy sauces in the condiment holder on restaurant tables are all-purpose soy sauces.
Chinese-style soy sauces traditionally are made with 100 percent soy, while Japanese-style soy sauces are made with a mix of soy and wheat (usually 50/50). This gives the Japanese sauces a sweeter, more nuanced flavor than their Chinese counterparts, which are usually saltier and more aggressive.
Why is Kikkoman Soy Sauce the seasoning of choice around the world today? Because of its taste - the harmonious combination of the five basic flavours sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, and the subtle balance between them gives Kikkoman Soy Sauce its delicious taste.
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.
Fried rice is a traditional Chinese preparation of cooked rice, vegetables, protein, soy sauce, and aromatics. The ingredients are stir-fried in a large pan or wok for even flavor distribution.
It is the most commonly used sauce in Chinese cooking. If our recipes call for “soy sauce,” we mean light soy sauce! Dark Soy Sauce (Chinese): Thicker and sweeter than light soy sauce, as it often contains added sugar. It's used in small amounts, for color as well as flavor in dishes.
Light soy sauce (Sheng Chou/生抽) is possibly one of the most used sauces in Chinese cooking. It is made primarily of fermented soybeans and has a dark brownish-red hue and water-like consistency. In most cases, when a recipe calls for soy sauce, this is what you should use.
Use the right oil to fry rice
Oils suitable for stir-frying are vegetable oil such as peanut and palm oil. They have a high smoking point suitable for stir-frying and a neutral taste that will not affect the flavor of the fried rice. Olive oil and butter are not suitable for cooking oriental fried rice.
Koon Chun Soy Sauces are our number one pick of Chinese soy sauces. Koon Chun is made in Hong Kong with the basic ingredients of Canadian soybeans, sea salt, wheat flour and water without additives. Koon Chun soy sauces are widely recommended in Chinese cooking communities.
To put it simply, light soy sauce is used for seasoning and dark soy sauce is used for adding colour to dishes. Light soy sauce is golden brown in colour and rich in taste to add flavour during marinating and seasoning stage. It uplifts the flavour of any meat, noodles or rice dishes.
For years the backbone of Japanese food culture, Kikkoman soy sauce is now used in over 100 countries worldwide.
Light Soy Sauce (Thin Soy Sauce)
Used in stir-fry sauces, marinades, soups, and even dipping sauces, light soy sauce is the most common type used in Chinese cooking. It's what most North Americans would think of as "regular" soy sauce.
While traditional Chinese soy sauces were made only using soy beans (some modern Chinese soy sauces contain wheat, too), when the brewing method made its way to Japan, the recipe was modified to use an even ratio of soybeans and wheat, producing a soy sauce with a sweeter flavor profile.
Here's the main difference between each of them: Light soy sauce (7.2% sodium) – adds salt to a dish but doesn't stain noodles a deep mahogany colour nor does it add much “soy flavour” Dark soy sauce (9.3% sodium) – must more intense in flavour and saltiness, noodles become a lovely dark colour.
The versatile standard bearer, Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce is rich, yet light, with the perfect balance of salty, smooth mouthfeel. Use this soy sauce for an addition of savory flavor without altering the color of the final dish.
What's the difference between Kikkoman Soy Sauce and cheaper brands? In a nutshell, the way it is made! Kikkoman Soy Sauce is naturally brewed over several months, resulting in a top quality, richly coloured, aromatic soy sauce that is perfect for all types of seasoning.
Our Test Kitchen praised Kikkoman for how well it blended sweetness, saltiness and a bit of acidic vinegar flavor—”exactly how soy sauce should taste” according to one set of notes.