Japanese BBQ Sauce

Japanese barbecue sauce is an inherently fusion food, an exciting combination of Japanese tare sauce with some Korean chile heat and American piquancy. This sauce is tangy, sweet, tart, earthy, robust, and has a great, clingy consistency which makes it perfect for brushing, mopping, drizzling, and dipping. Even better: It comes together so quickly and delivers so much flavor that it almost feels like a dream.

We used dry sake in this blend to get its full-bodied flavor without making this recipe even sweeter than it already is. If you don’t want to use or can’t find sake near you choose a dry and minerally white wine, like orvieto or pinot grigio. If you want to swap out the alcohol entirely, you can choose water or vegetable stock, and swap out the mirin for a dark honey, like buckwheat. You can make this with standard soy sauce, or swap to tamari sauce to make it gluten free. We served this as a dipping sauce with our Savory Japanese BBQ Pancake, but this can go on everything; try it with veggies, eggs, chicken, fish, beef, or tofu.