Did you know that Seattle is the “teriyaki” capital of America? According to the New York Times and the Angry Asian Man, the art of this sweet and savory sauce is tied to Seattle like thin crust pizza is to New York. Who knew?
Last year, I went on a long (and amazing) road trip back home to the Pacific Northwest (PDX to Seattle). Inspired by my ol’ high school stomping grounds to my fave hole-in-the-wall teriyaki joints, I thought it’d be a GREAT idea to share a simple, low-sugar and low-sodium teriyaki sauce that you can use at home.
Besides, that Yoshida brand sauce that’s all over Costco and grocery markets (full of high fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, and sunflower oil) will do NOTHING for your beautiful figure or your health goals. Try this instead. It’s SO simple.
This version uses FRESH ginger, garlic and green onions, very little honey (for the sweet), and tamari instead of soy sauce. (NOTE: If you don’t know what tamari is, check out this recent post: What is Tamari (vs. Soy Sauce)?)
- 1/3 cup tamari
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon honey, melted
- 1 tablespoon garlic (about 3-4 cloves), minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger (about 2” ginger), grated or minced
- 3 green onion (about ¼ cup), thinly sliced
- 1 jar with lid
- 1- 1½ lb. chicken, meat, fish tofu, or veggies
Instructions
- Pour 1/3 cup tamari in a jar and add the water, melted honey, minced garlic, grated ginger, and half of the thinly sliced green onions (the other half will be used for garnish).
- Cover and shake for a minute until well combined. The sauce is ready to use as a marinade OR store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- To marinate, take a medium bowl and pour the teriyaki sauce over the chicken, meat, fish, tofu, or veggies. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes while you heat up your pan.
- Heat a cast iron skillet, griddle, regular pan, or outdoor grill.
- Using a pair of tongs, place the marinated chicken, meat, fish tofu, or veggies on the grill/skillet. In this recipe, I used 1 large chicken breast and 1 thigh (boneless and skinless). The trick is to flip it ONCE and cook each side half way through before flipping it to the opposite side. (It's something I learned during my internship at Plow Restaurant in SF -- "Flip once!"). In total, it took about 10-12 minutes total for the two pieces of chicken to cook thoroughly. This will vary depending on what you are cooking and how thick it is.
- Garnish with the remaining slices of green onion.
Kale. All Day. Err Day.
Just made teriyaki chicken with this recipe and …. yum!!!! Your blog is my new fav food blog. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes. Oh and I appreciate your art/design background (I was a graphic/apparel designer, now I own a DJ company with the hubs)! I love your step by step photos, they are so beautiful to look at and I feel so official following them by the book. Ha, ha! Thanks!
Hey Jojo! Thanks so much for the super sweet note and SO HAPPY that little jar of teriyaki turned out yummy for you too 🙂 So awesome you are into design and DJing. My kind of interests!!! Oh and thanks for appreciating those step-by-step photos. They always help me when I’m trying to make a recipe, so I figured the visual learners out there could find them useful as well. Stay in touch!!! -steph