Everything You Need to Know About White Soy Sauce (Ultimate info)

Japanese Shiro or white soy sauce is very popular among chefs for adding flavor to recipes without overpowering. White soy sauce is lighter in terms of flavor as well as appearance comparing to its darker counterpart. Arguably, white soy sauce is the best to substitute for Dark Soy Sauce.

Difference Between Shoyu and Soy Sauce

Soy sauces are alternately both Chinese or Japanese-style. Japanese soy sauce, however, consists of a mix of wheat with soy, typically fifty-fifty ration. Whereas, Chinese-style are made with 100 percent soy. 

Types of White Soy Sauce

Soy sauce is a must-have ingredient in basically every single Asian person’s kitchen. So whether it is being cooked into our foods or used as a dipping sauce soy sauce is used in so many dishes, mainly Asian cuisines.

But many of you might not know that there are actually many kinds of soy sauce. Each country has its own ways of making soy sauces and I chose 10 that are probably the most well known.

Japanese Soy Sauces

Japan actually has the widest variety of soy sauces, while the most common sources in Japan are the dark soy sauce which is Rich and Less Salty, something like Smoky. Many of us think What is White Soy Sauce for? So let me tell you there are 3 most common use of White Soy Sauce is used for are;

1. Cooking
2. Marinating
3. Dipping

Japanese Light Soy Sauce

Japanese light soy sauces are sweeter and saltier because the flavoring is more intense, it is good for making sauces and cooking. If you are gluten intolerant there is a Japanese soy sauce called the Tamari, it is made with middle to no wheat. It has a very strong flavor and as good as a dipping sauce as well.

Pros & Cons

• Little to No Wheat
• Strong Flavour
• Gluten Intolerance
• Goof for Dipping

But if strong flavor soy sauce is not your thing, Japan also has a soy sauce called the Shiro. This one is made with more wheat than usual the opposite of tamari. The flavor of Shiro is also the opposite of tamari it has a light flavor. Shiro is good for dipping with white fish and the favorite of thousands across Japan and other countries.

Pron & Cons

• Characteristics of Shiro
• Brewed with more Wheat
• Lighter Color and Flavour
• Good for Dipping White Fleshed Sashimi

Chinese Soy Sauces

Now moving on to Chinese soy sauces the Chinese dark soy sauce has a rich flavor is less salty and may have some added sweeteners. Chinese dark soy sauce is mainly used as a sauce for cooking.

The Chinese light soy sauce is thinner in consistency than the dark one, but as the dark soy sauce, it is often used as a sauce or also cooking. The most Chinese dishes that call for soy sauce use this soy sauce unless otherwise specified,

Pros & Cons

• A specialty of Suzhou (China)
• Simmered with Fresh Shrimp
• Finished with Sugar

A specialty of Suzhou Province in China is Shrimp Soy Sauce. Now, this is made by simmering soy sauce and shrimp sugar by joe which is a type of distilled liquor and different spices.

Other soy sauces like the Indonesian Kecap Manis Soy Sauce. This soy sauce has added flavoring of palm sugar starts a nice water bottle and blue ginger. This Indonesian soy sauce is used in a large number of their dishes.

Pros & Cons

• Made of Fermented Soy Beans
• Flavored with Palm Sugar
• Star Anise
• Blue Ginger
• Sweet

The last soy sauce I am gonna explain is chemically processed for at least partly chemically processed. They are low-sodium soy sauces, good for people who can’t consume too much salt. While the downer is that less salt equals more chemicals and I would just recommend less real soy sauce.

Low Sodium Soy Sauce

• Good for Less Consume People
• More Chemical
• Less Salt

Where to Buy White Soy Sauce

It is typically available in different sizes of a bottle from a different gauge of milliliters. In order to remove your confusion, OZ stands for Ounces, 100 ml equals 3.38 ounces, or there are 3.38 ounces in 100 milliliters. While you get 6.7 oz when you pick a 200 ml bottle. Check the Best place to Buy White Soy Sauce.

Final Word

The Shoyu (White Soy Sauce) is the best option to present meals as sashimi served with the savory sauce. That’s the reason it is a quite popular outcome for thousands of food bloggers and chefs. As per its popularity, you can find the items in almost every mart and grocery shop.

I am going to suggest that you avoid chemical soy sauces as they are originally created to have a longer shelf-life. They can also be made in three days whereas Traditional Soy Sauce takes months. They are mostly made by Hydrolyzing Soy Protein and then combined with other flavors. Hydrolyzing is breaking down chemical compounds through chemical reactions with water the taste of these soy sauce is going to be very different from traditional soy sauces made by fermenting soybeans.