Homemade Yakisoba Sauce

A delicious homemade sauce for your Japanese stir-fried noodles

Yakisoba noodles: a true gem of Japanese street food. If you’re fond of this stir-fried noodle dish, it’s likely because the accompanying sauce has had the desired effect. Creamy and rich with sweet and savory flavors, Yakisoba sauce is actually very simple and quick to prepare.

What is Yakisoba Sauce?

There’s no great mystery with Yakisoba sauce: it’s the one that enhances your favorite noodles of the same name. And it must be said that this sweet-savory mixture is particularly effective with the stir-fried vegetables and meat.

It’s creamy, sweet, and at the same time tangy. In short, the ideal formula for the best Yakisoba. You’ll only need a few ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry, namely: soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, oyster sauce, and sugar, among others.

Yakisoba Sauce and Tonkatsu Sauce, What’s the Difference?

Yakisoba sauce might vaguely remind you of something. If we take a quick look at the few ingredients that compose it, we’ll quickly realize that it’s almost the same as Tonkatsu sauce or even Okonomiyaki sauce.

Yes and no, actually. They are all brownish sauces, which have roughly the same smell and taste profile with common ingredients like Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and oyster sauce. In short, we’re not lost in the sauce, it’s starting to be strangely similar.

Although these are the same ingredients, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the proportions are also the same. And that, inevitably, has an impact on the taste of each. The differences between the sauces are actually quite real. They simply don’t lie in their composition, but in the dosage of ingredients and in their uses.

It goes without saying that Yakisoba sauce is primarily dedicated to Yakisoba noodles, while Tonkatsu sauce is for Tonkatsu pork. The same goes for Okonomiyaki sauce. In essence, it’s quite difficult to compare them.

Yakisoba sauce is distinguished by the fact that it’s slightly spicier than the others due to the use of garlic and pepper. Also, the soy sauce taste is clearly more pronounced. It’s even said to be less sweet than other sauces.

The Main Ingredients of Yakisoba Sauce

Soy sauce: we can almost say that it’s “the main element of the sauce. The rest of the recipe remains relatively mild, apart from the Worcestershire sauce, the objective being, with this salty base, to” balance the flavors of the sauce. Kikkoman is neither light nor dark, strictly speaking, but if you had to choose, the light one works.

Worcestershire sauce: a touch of complexity, Worcestershire sauce, as is the case for Tonkatsu or Okonomiyaki sauce, will bring that little spicy taste. It’s sweet and sour, it adds depth, and it’s everything we love about this kind of sauce.

Ketchup: to contrast with the already mentioned ingredients that have rather strong flavors, ketchup softens the whole with sweet, very slightly tangy notes. In this sense, the addition of honey and sugar also helps to make the mixture less aggressive. Ketchup is also a thickening element for the sauce. Perfect for coating noodles!

Garlic: a bit spicy, it makes all the difference. Yakisoba sauce is one more reason to consume garlic!

Sesame oil: it gives the sauce a slight nutty flavor. Sesame oil blends perfectly with the other ingredients, bringing them richness and aroma.

Glutamate: like salt, it’s a flavor enhancer that revives the flavors of a dish without overdoing it, without saturating it with salt. It will even bring out the umami flavors of the sauce.