Soy sauce is a pretty familiar ingredient to most cooks, but what about dark soy sauce? As Chinese recipes become more accessible to a wider audience, folks are seeing a greater number of recipes call for this ingredient. But what’s the difference between dark soy sauce and regular soy sauce, and do you really need it in your pantry?
The short answer is yes, if you’re looking to cook Chinese dishes! It is one of our 10 Essential Chinese Pantry Ingredients, and in this article, we’ll tell you why.
What Is Dark Soy Sauce?
Dark soy sauce is thicker, sweeter, and indeed darker than regular/light soy sauce. It is called lǎo chōu (老抽) in Chinese, which means, “old soy sauce.”
By contrast, in Chinese cooking, “regular” soy sauce is actually known as light soy sauce, or shēng chōu (生抽).
These are the two main types of soy sauce you will see in Chinese recipes. Light soy sauce is used primarily for seasoning. Dark soy sauce is saltier than light soy sauce, with a stronger flavor, so it is used in smaller quantities. Use it to flavor dishes, but more importantly, to darken the color of sauces, fried rice, noodles, etc.
If you’ve ever cooked one of our recipes and wondered why the color of your dish looks different from the picture, this ingredient is the likely culprit. However, don’t go overboard with your dark soy. A little goes a long way—a teaspoon or two is enough to turn a wok full of noodles an appetizing amber color!
Most people think that it has less salt than regular soy sauce. However, it actually has about 15% more sodium than regular/light soy sauce. Its mild sweetness offsets the saltiness, making it only seem less salty.
How To Use Dark Soy Sauce
Dark soy sauce is more suitable for dishes with stronger flavors, like stews and braised dishes, rather than lighter dishes like cold appetizers (liángcài – 凉菜), salads, and more delicate stir-fries.
You see it most often in dishes involving meat, rice, and noodles. For instance, the famous braising technique, red cooking (hóngshāo – 红烧) involves a mixture of light and dark soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and rock sugar. Dark soy sauce is what gives Red Cooked Pork that rich color!
You can also use it to achieve that tantalizing amber color in stir-fries like Beef & Broccoli or rice/noodle dishes like Supreme Soy Sauce Fried Rice and Cantonese Pan-fried Noodles.
See the photo below of adding sauce to white rice, and what the rice looks like after it’s been stirred in!
Or in this stir-fry with beef, bamboo shoots, and peppers, the difference in the color of the ingredients before the sauces are added, and after:
You’ll also see sweetened dark soy sauce used as a condiment in Cantonese dishes, including dim sum items like Shrimp Rice Noodle Rolls (Har Cheung) and Fried Dough Rice Noodle Rolls (Zha Leung), or Hainanese Chicken Rice. Because it is so strong, it is thinned with a mixture of water and sugar for this application.
Again, you only need a teaspoon or two to take a dish from pale to amber brown. Taste often when adding more, so you don’t over-season your dish!
Don’t Confuse Chinese Dark Soy Sauce with Other Types!
There is such a wide range of soy sauces, from Japanese to Korean, to Thai or Indonesian, and more. It’s important to emphasize the fact that in this article, we are referring to Chinese dark soy sauce.
This is not to be confused with Japanese dark soy sauce, which is actually the general purpose seasoning of that cuisine, as opposed to Japanese light soy, which is used less often.
Also don’t confuse it with Thai sweet soy sauce or Indonesian kecap manis, both of which are extremely sweet and syrupy. Thai black soy sauce is similar to the Chinese version, so if you have that, you can substitute it!
Another type of soy sauce you may have seen is Chinese double black soy sauce. This is essentially soy sauce with a small amount of molasses. As a result, it is sweeter and has a slightly different flavor than plain dark soy. You can use it as a substitute if you need to, but we would not choose double black soy sauce over regular dark soy.
Want a full overview of different kinds of soy sauce?
Check out our article, Soy Sauce: Everything You Need to Know!
Buying & Storing
Our favorite brands
Not all dark soy sauces are the same. Some are higher quality, thicker, and darker than others.
We prefer Pearl River Bridge Superior Dark Soy Sauce. You can buy it in 500ml bottles or larger bulk jugs (1.8L). Runner up for us is Lee Kum Kee Premium Dark Soy Sauce. There are other brands out there, so you can give others a try.
If you want to replicate our recipes as closely as possible to how we made them, we buy Pearl River Bridge superior dark soy sauce, and Pearl River Bridge Light Soy Sauce (Superior or Golden Label are both fine).
The ingredients should be simple: water, soybeans, sugar, salt, wheat flour.
What about preservatives?
As relatively conscientious consumers, we have seen that there is a small amount of sulfur dioxide in Pearl River Bridge Soy Sauce to preserve it.
That said, we have found that even under California’s strict Proposition 65 rules, a warning label for sulfur dioxide in soy sauce isn’t necessary. You can check out the report yourself (We did. TLDR: someone who consumes an average amount of soy sauce daily would ingest 0.026 milligrams of SO2—pretty tiny).
You may also see Mushroom Flavored Dark Soy Sauce. It has a bit of extra (you guessed it) mushroom flavor, which adds umami to dishes. You can use it interchangeably with regular dark soy sauce.
Double Black Soy Sauce, again, is basically soy sauce with added molasses, making it darker, thicker, and a bit sweet. If you have it in your pantry already, use it in place of dark soy sauce. But when it comes time for another bottle, just buy regular dark soy.
You can see below that the light soy sauce on the left is pretty thin in consistency, while the dark soy sauce in the middle is thicker and darker. The double black on the right has a consistency similar to dark soy sauce.
If you don’t have a Chinese market near you, you can also find this ingredient online, either on Amazon, or from local mom-and-pop Chinese groceries like Po Wing Hong that ship!
Storage
Store your it in a cool, dry place like the pantry for up to 1 year. According to Pearl River Bridge, an opened bottle can last in the refrigerator up to 3 years! If unopened, it can last even longer than that. However, it’s always best to use it within a reasonable amount of time.
Luckily we use it in so many of our recipes, so if you decide to invest in a bottle and cook with us every so often, you’ll definitely get use out of it.
What Can I Substitute for Dark Soy Sauce?
This ingredient is usually in recipes in small amounts, mostly for color. So if you don’t have any, you can simply omit it or replace with regular soy sauce. Your dish will be lighter in color, but still tasty.
That said, if you really want your version of a recipe to look like the photographs, and that recipe calls for dark soy sauce, don’t leave it out.
Double black soy sauce, mushroom-flavored dark soy sauce, and Thai black soy sauce can all be substituted for dark soy if that’s what you have on hand.
If all you have is regular soy sauce (just make sure it is naturally brewed, rather than a chemical soy sauce), you can make a dark soy sauce substitute by combining regular soy sauce, molasses, and a pinch of sugar (see recipe below).
Gluten-free dark soy sauce
The only brand we’ve seen produce produce a gluten-free dark soy sauce is Lee Kum Kee. However, we have only seen the product on their website sold as a bulk foodservice jug. We have never seen it in a Chinese market or grocery store.
That said, you can make your own dark soy substitution using the recipe in this post. Just use a gluten-free soy sauce in place of the regular soy sauce in the recipe.
Our Favorite Dishes That Use This Ingredient:
- Chinese Stir-fry Sauce
- Cantonese Soy Sauce Pan-fried Noodles
- Supreme Soy Sauce Fried Rice
- Instant Pot Soy Sauce Chicken Bowls
- Soy Sauce Chicken
- Caramelized Soy Sauce Noodles with Sweet Potato & Mushrooms
- Hong Kong Style Clay Pot Rice
If you have further questions about dark soy sauce, let us know in the comments. We try to answer every single one!
Dark Soy Sauce Substitution
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce (regular or light soy sauce or gluten-free soy sauce)
- 1/2 teaspoon molasses
- 1/8 teaspoon sugar
Instructions
Substitution Option A:
- Double black soy sauce, mushroom flavored dark soy sauce, Thai black soy sauce (all can be used interchangeably with dark soy sauce)
Substitution Option B:
- 2 teaspoons regular soy sauce (or gluten-free soy sauce) mixed with 1/2 teaspoon molasses and 1/8 teaspoon sugar.
