We Tried the 10 Best Japanese Soy Sauces in 2022 (Seasoning Expert-Reviewed)

Generally speaking, soy sauce is made from soybeans, wheat, salt brine, and alcohol, which is used as a preservative. A seed mold is added to the soybean and wheat mixture and allowed to mature, resulting in koji, similar to malt. The salt brine is added in later, completing the fermentation process.

The seed mold is not usually included in the ingredients list, but it’s essential to the art of soy sauce brewing, and most brands will have a proprietary mold. Temperature and humidity also influence how soy sauce turns out, so most factories will have strict controls in place.

There are two main ways soy sauce is brewed; one is the traditional honjozo method and the other is the kongo or mixed method. The kongo method adds liquid amino acids and sweeteners to the soy sauce to bring out more umami, and you should try it if you like deep, complex flavors. On the other hand, stick with honjozo if you enjoy the straightforward taste of classic soy sauce.

While most of us just have the one bottle of Kikkoman that we use for everything when cooking Asian cuisine, did you know that some soy sauces pair better with certain dishes? 

Similar to how you'd pair wine with specific dishes, soy sauce is best enjoyed when paired with the appropriate dishes. There are all kinds of soy sauces that match different dishes, including not just sashimi, tofu, and other typical Japanese dishes, but also some combinations that might surprise you, like toast and ice cream!

Note that throughout this article, we'll be using words like umami and dashi to explain certain things. If you're unfamiliar with these terms, here's a brief primer.

• Umami - Often described as savoriness, and is one of the five basic tastes, identified by a Japanese professor Kikunae Ikeda in 1908.
• Dashi - Japanese for stock, usually made from seafood, and often used to add or enhance umami.

We’ll get into how we tested and compared all the bottles of soy sauce, but before that, we want to introduce four things you should look out for when picking out a Japanese soy sauce.

Dark soy sauce has a good balance of salinity and sweetness and is the most common type of soy sauce available in Japan.

Dark soy sauces pair well with most types of food, so if you don't know what to get, this is always a good place to start.

As the name implies, sweet soy sauce is sweeter than it is salty. Although it pairs well with all kinds of foods, similar to dark soy sauce, since this soy sauce is already sweet, you won't need to add any extra sugar to your dish to create authentic Japanese flavors.

In our tests, we found that sweet soy sauce pairs well with simmered dishes. You can make a sweet and salty simmered dish with just the bottle of sweet soy sauce. Additionally, you can brush some sweet soy sauce onto onigiri rice balls and grill them to make a sweet and salty snack.

Double-brewed and tamari soy sauce have strong flavors and can suppress the fishy smell found in seafood. These soy sauces also pair excellently with marbled steaks like wagyu, adding extra flavors. They also pair surprisingly well with ice cream and toast, drawing out rich flavors.

In our tests, we found that these soy sauces were particularly praised for their aromas. They have a strong, salty, and satisfying smell, and are great for those who really want to enjoy the flavor of the soy sauce itself.

Light and white soy sauces have a sharp saltiness and a refreshing aftertaste. These soy sauces don't get in the way of the flavors of your ingredients, while still adding the fragrance of soy sauce.

Since these soy sauces have a very pale color, they can add flavor to your foods without changing the color too much.

If you're trying to reduce your sodium intake, consider low-sodium soy sauce. Low-sodium soy sauces are required to only have nine grams of sodium or less for every 100 grams of soy sauce, or 0.3 ounces of salt or less in 3.5 ounces of soy sauce, which is half of the standard amount of salt found in normal soy sauce.

However, to make up for the loss in umami, some low-sodium soy sauces will mix in preservatives and other chemical additives, so if you’re worried (and can read Japanese), scan the ingredients list for anything fishy.

Additionally, if you're looking for organic soy sauce, consider a soy sauce that uses soybeans that have been certified organic by the Japan Agricultural Standard (JAS). These products will have the Organic JAS stamp on the label, making it easy to recognize.

Major Japanese soy sauce manufacturers like Kikkoman have recently shifted their main products to bottles which form an airtight seal each time you close them. While they aren't available in large sizes, they excel at keeping soy sauce fresh and can be used to pour soy sauce directly from the bottle, making them great for those who live alone or don't use soy sauce very frequently.

For the freshest soy sauce flavor, consider soy sauces that come in a glass bottle. Compared to plastic bottles or cartons, soy sauce in glass bottles won't absorb any smells and is less prone to oxidizing. However, soy sauce in large bottles needs to be transferred to a smaller soy sauce bottle or dispenser before it's used.

Here are our six favorite soy sauces, which we tested for flavor, aroma, and how well they pair with foods in certain dishes.

※Japanese prices for the products are given, but they've been converted into US dollars to make it easy for you.

We tested the top-selling soy sauces on Amazon, Rakuten, and Yahoo! Shopping to find out the best ones on the market.

We tested each soy sauce for the following:

1. Taste
2. Fragrance
3. Compatibility with ingredients

First, we tested how delicious each soy sauce is. 

We enlisted the help of professional seasoning sommelier MICHIKO, as well as six male and female testers from mybest's Japanese editorial team, including one who has been training his sense of taste through practice recognizing the five flavors of sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness and umami, to thoroughly evaluate each product.

They compared the taste of soy sauce by pouring soy sauce onto a spoon and tasting it by itself.

Next, we tested each soy sauce's fragrance. 

The more well-made a soy sauce is, the more rich its fragrance is. We smelled all the soy sauces and then evaluated each product on a five-point scale ranging from one to five.

Finally, we compared how compatible each soy sauce was with various ingredients. 

Soy sauce isn't something you enjoy on its own - it's intended to be used with a variety of dishes. In a perfect world, soy sauce should be compatible with any kind of food.

For this test, we tasted the soy sauces with tuna sashimi, tofu, and simmered daikon radish, and evaluated how well the soy sauce paired with these foods. For the simmered daikon radish, we pre-boiled the radish, then simmered it for five minutes with a broth made from three tablespoons of soy sauce and 13 tablespoons of water.

In Japan, the preferred type of soy sauce differs depending on the region. Although we mentioned that dark soy sauce is the most common type of soy sauce in Japan, if you go to a different region, you'll often find that different types of soy sauce are more popular, oftentimes based on differences in regional cuisine.

In our tests, we found that regionality played a huge role in how our testers evaluated the soy sauces, with testers from Hokkaido preferring dashi soy sauce, and testers from Kyushu preferring sweet soy sauce, for example.

Here's a breakdown of what regions prefer what type of soy sauce:

• Hokkaido: Dark soy sauce, dashi soy sauce
• Tohoku: Slightly sweet dark soy sauce, dashi soy sauce
• Kanto: Dark soy sauce, with Chiba Prefecture being a major producer
• Chubu: Dark soy sauce, tamari soy sauce, and white soy sauce
• Hokuriku: Slightly sweet dark soy sauce
• Kansai: Either dark or light soy sauce, with Hyogo Prefecture being the birthplace of light soy sauce
• Shikoku: Shodoshima island is famed for its dark soy sauce, but sweet soy sauce is more common in Ehime and Kochi Prefectures
• Chugoku: Yamaguchi prefecture is the birthplace of double-brewed soy sauce, but sweet soy sauce is also popular
• Kyushu: The further south you go, the sweeter the soy sauce. Dark and light soy sauces are also used depending on the dish

Have you ever heard of soy sauce jelly? It's sometimes served at high-end sushi restaurants and is a new and interesting alternative to your standard soy sauce. Unlike normal liquid soy sauce, soy sauce jelly won't get absorbed by your food, making it perfect as a garnish and seasoning combination. So, how do you make it?

It's actually really easy to make, and only takes three steps:

1. Melt some gelatin with hot water
2. Add some soy sauce 
3. Chill it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours

And that's it! This simple recipe can elevate your dishes, allowing you to have a fine-dining experience right at home.

We found that dashi soy sauce and oyster soy sauces were rated higher than standard soy sauces, mostly since our testers found them to be more delicious on their own in comparison. These soy sauces will also pair well with lighter dishes to add extra flavor. 

However, dashi soy sauce isn't as salty as other soy sauces, and when paired with foods that have strong flavors, like tuna sashimi, the flavors will clash and won't work. So, dashi and oyster soy sauces aren't as versatile as the other types, so we've separated them from the main list of products and featured them in their own list of products.

Author: Yoshiko Ito/Translation: Jasmine Li, Mitsuki Nagasawa, Izumi Taneda/Photos: Eisuke Kurajima/Images: Anan Ma

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