The delicious recipe for Tonkatsu sauce, also called bulldog sauce
You’ll surely agree: once you’ve tasted Tonkatsu sauce, you can’t live without it. Sweet, salty, and slightly spicy all at once, it’s to be consumed without moderation.
With just four ingredients, you can already do great things to enhance dishes like Korokke, Katsudon, or of course, Tonkatsu. You and your dishes deserve the best, don’t they?
What is Tonkatsu Sauce?
When we talk about Tonkatsu pork, we automatically think of the sauce that makes it so delicious. It’s a bit of a tandem, an inseparable duo in Japanese cuisine.
Tonkatsu sauce is the sweetest and creamiest thing for a dish like this. Katsu Sando and Katsudon are also good options to explore.
It’s also called bulldog sauce
. Apparently, it has nothing to do with the dog but rather with the name of the brand and manufacturer of this famous Tonkatsu sauce. I don’t need to tell you that it’s very popular in Asia, and you quickly understand why. It’s also similar to okonomiyaki sauce, which is sometimes called bulldog sauce as well, and to yakisoba sauce.
The recipe for their Tonkatsu sauce is very rich and consists of a long list of ingredients, including tomato sauce, apple and plum puree, carrot concentrate, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, and many other little things that create this unique sweet, slightly tangy taste and thick texture that perfectly coats fried foods like chicken katsu.
While it “’s convenient to” have a ready-made sauce, with ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and oyster sauce – all things you can find in your cupboards – you have everything you need to make a Tonkatsu sauce that comes quite close in taste to the original!
Main Ingredients of Tonkatsu Sauce
Ketchup: in the recipe for the so-called bulldog sauce, tomato sauce is used. In this recipe, ketchup will take on this role by providing that tomato taste but especially sweet, slightly sugary and tangy flavor in addition to the relatively thick consistency of the mixture.
Worcestershire sauce: sweet and sour, to stay in line with the basic idea of Tonkatsu sauce. It’s this ingredient, however, that will give that little spicy touch. It actually makes quite an impact among the other ingredients which are rather mild.
Oyster sauce: no, it doesn’t bring an iodized taste, even if we might think so. It simply reinforces the salt content that’s missing in Tonkatsu sauce and balances the flavors.
Powdered Dashi: for this recipe, this ingredient is optional but not uninteresting. Some people sometimes replace it with chicken broth. In my opinion, this option is not as rich as Dashi, which brings real complexity, depth, and intensity to the dish with its umami flavors.
Homemade Tonkatsu Sauce
Ingredients
- 60 ml ketchup
- 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon of powdered dashi optional
Procédé
- Mix everything in a bowl until the sugar and dashi dissolve60 ml ketchup, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 0.5 teaspoon of powdered dashi
