Lee Kum Kee Premium Light Soy 500 ml (Pack of 2)

Product Information

Soy sauce can be incredibly salty. If you need to watch how much sodium you’re consuming, regular soy sauce might be off the table. The good news is that this lower-sodium version is available from a popular grocery store brand. This one comes in a 16.9-ounce bottle, so you’ll have plenty to use for all your favorite recipes. It is produced in Hong Kong by the Lee Kim Kee brand which has been in business for 135 years. We love its Dark Soy Sauces, but the brand makes over 200 other types of traditional sauces and condiments including teriyaki sauce, abalone sauce, chili oil, hoisin sauce, peanut sauce, rice vinegar, and more. But this sauce is more than just the perfect consistency for dunking. Yamaroku soy sauce was strong with the right balance of cider vinegar-like acidity, sweetness and salt. This well-balanced sauce is a must for leveling up your regular takeout dishes and at-home creations. It will add a deep flavor to any dish, but it will also create a dark brown color, especially in things that contain white rice or lighter-colored broth or noodles.

Fermented in bourbon barrels, Bluegrass soy sauce had a flavor unlike any other brand we tested. In addition to the salty, savory notes you’d expect from soy sauce, this brand also had some molasses and fruity flavors coming through making for complex and satisfying flavors. This one is aged for two Japanese summers in cedar kegs, which adds to the complex flavor. It's also unpasteurized, so it retains the enzymes from fermentation, and it is naturally lower in sodium since the process used to make it involves less salt. It is also organic, kosher, and has no added preservatives. You can get it in a 10-ounce bottle with a special cap to help with pouring if it suits your needs, and at a good price, too. However, if you have a soy sauce-loving house, this low-sodium soy sauce is available in a 2-quart jug and a gluten-free 2-quart jug. This soy sauce has the umami flavor that you love, just with less sodium. It is made with the same ingredients as regular soy sauce, like water, soybeans, wheat, and lactic acid, and is brewed the same way, but has 590 milligrams of sodium per 1 tablespoon serving. The math shows that this is almost 40 percent less than other leading options. You’ll find it isn’t as deep in taste as dark or premium soy sauces, but this does allow you to use a bit more if need be. You won’t need a lot to give a dish some flavor, either—while it is characterized as mild, the fermentation process of the four ingredients in kioke barrels produces a deep, complex flavor that's smooth and mellow, without sharp notes that would overpower a dish. The brand recommends trying it as a dipping sauce for things like sushi and seafood and as an ingredient in fried rice, but also as a topping for vanilla ice cream. Sounds strange, right? But it is said to create a caramel flavor!Sometimes our Test Kitchen pros taste an ingredient and the perfect application for it comes right to mind (like how some San Marzano tomatoes just scream tomato soup). As soon as our testers sampled Lee Kum Kee Premium Soy Sauce, they thought: stir-fry. As a soy sauce, though, the primary flavor was salt, and that’s just fine. This is precisely the flavor you need when making great dishes to bring out tastes in all the other ingredients. Just remember: When using generous amounts of soy sauce in your recipes, you can omit the salt. Like wine or fine liquors, soy sauce may be aged. Longer aging creates deeper more complex flavors, but also adds to the cost. When the soy sauce will be mixed with other ingredients, used in a small quantity, or used primarily for the salty flavor, just about any sauce will suffice, whether it has been aged or not. Fermented and aged in 100-year-old barrels, Yamaroku 4 Years Aged Kiku Bisiho Soy Sauce is an all-around good choice—perfect for everything from fried rice to marinades. Looking for a low-sodium option? Go with Kikkoman Less Sodium Soy Sauce. What to Look for in Soy Sauce Type

It might not be a typical soy sauce that you’d spot on the table at your favorite sushi spot, but this brand was tasty and satisfying.

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It is high in sodium, but you don’t need a lot to taste the sauce’s flavor, so unless you add a lot, there’s not anything to worry about. Like so many other condiments, soy sauce comes in many, many varieties, each with its own signature flavor. Now, do you know which soy sauce brand you want to add to your dishes for your own trademark flavor? Our Test Kitchen sampled nine popular brands to find the best soy sauce. This soy sauce made from water, soybeans, wheat, and salt is fermented and aged for four years in 100-year-old wooden barrels via the traditional kioke method. When the cedar barrels typically used for this aging became expensive and harder to find, many companies stopped using this process, but not Yamaroku for its Kikubishio Soy Sauce. It brews its product on the warm and dry Shodo Island in Southern Japan. We rely on soy sauce to add savory flavor to dishes, but Bluegrass Soy Sauce adds much more than just that. Each brand was sampled blindly by our Test Kitchen team—both solo and with white rice. Our team was looking for the right balance of salt and umami. These aren’t the only tastes present in soy sauce, though, so our culinary gang kept careful notes on any other flavors they detected. Soy can sometimes taste citrusy, coffee-like or even funky—it is fermented after all! Our Test Kitchen-Preferred Soy Sauce Brands

Other pantry staples like vinegar and olive oil are common gifts to give any seasoned or amateur chef, but soy sauce is a unique idea that is sure to please. There are five options of the Mikuni Wild Harvest Haku Japanese Shoyu soy sauce—all with different characteristics not found in typical soy sauces. This one is from Kikkoman, a popular brand 20 generations strong that is known for its soy sauces. In addition to soy sauce and lemon juice, this ponzu contains sugar, vinegar, a bonito fish sauce, and salt. It may sound like it is full of sodium, but it has 480 milligrams per tablespoon serving—much less than regular soy sauce, making it a great option if you are watching your sodium intake.Those recipes are just the start, though! Reach for the best soy sauce any time you want to add a touch of umami flavor and salt to your go-to dishes, sauces, marinades and dressings. Soy sauce provides a lot of depth of flavor and umami richness derived from naturally occurring MSG," Smith says, But, like barbecue sauce, it comes in a wide range of styles. While it’s unlikely you’ll be able to sample the soy sauce at the local market, paying attention to the type of soy sauce will help you choose the one you like. Eventually, it might. While it’s unlikely, it could develop mold. The good news is that an unopened bottle of soy sauce is good for 2-3 years, and possibly longer. Most opened bottles of soy sauce are safe for at least a year thanks to the high salt content. However, the flavor may change over time, so if the soy sauce doesn’t seem as good as it used to be, it may be time to splurge on a fresh bottle. If the soy sauce will be used as a dipping sauce or its flavor is a major part of the recipe, it might be worth splurging on a sauce that was aged longer. Traditional soy sauces are aged for 5-8 months and are suitable for most uses, but for a real splurge, there are a number of soy sauces that are aged for up to 4 years.