Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Recipe
(recipe card is below, just scroll down)
This a super simple and fast base recipe for an easy homemade teriyaki sauce that you can use on all kinds of easy weeknight dinners.
I lived in Seattle for 25 years, and my kids were born and grew up there. And it turns out that Seattle is the birthplace of American style teriyaki! Who knew?!? We think of teriyaki as Japanese food, but the version we know of it is actually an American invention, created by Japanese immigrants in Seattle and evolved over the years to suit American tastes.
In Seattle we were surrounded by teriyaki restaurants, it was actually the type of fast food restaurant that there were the most of. We got accustomed to eating a lot of teriyaki, it was the easiest default weeknight thing to pick up after busy days when we didn’t feel like cooking. But when we left Seattle we were a little surprised to realize that not every town had a teriyaki restaurant on every corner! So now it’s become one of my go-to easy weeknight dinners to cook for the family. It’s really just as simple as slapping some teriyaki sauce on pieces of chicken or slices of tofu, and sticking it in a hot oven for 15 - 30 minutes, just long enough to cook some rice and maybe microwave a bag of frozen broccoli.
It really had never occurred to me to make my own teriyaki sauce until one day I had promised teriyaki chicken to a kid for dinner, and realized I didn’t have any teriyaki sauce in my pantry. So I looked up some recipes for how to make it and it turns out that it’s very simple and fast. Seriously this can come together in like five minutes. If you do any amount of Asian cooking you likely already have all the ingredients you need. I do still buy bottled sauce occasionally because it is very nice to have around (this brand is my all time favorite), but more often these days I just whip up my own because it’s so fast and easy.
What you need for this easy homemade teriyaki sauce recipe:
The recipe card is below.
pineapple juice
soy sauce
brown sugar
honey
ginger (ground or fresh)
garlic (ground or fresh)
sesame oil (optional)
corn starch
sesame seeds (optional)
hoisin sauce (optional)
The recipe card is below with the specific measurements, but really they are all approximate and very flexible. My favorite combination of flavors is meant to imitate a combination of two of the flavors of that bottled sauce brand that I love (the island version with pineapple juice and sesame, and the hoisin garlic version)
Once you have everything together, you basically just chuck it all in a saucepan and whisk a bit as it heats up. Once the mixture gets up to a simmering temperature the corn starch will thicken up and then you’re done. It takes really like five minutes. Unlike flour, when you thicken a sauce with corn starch it’s done as soon as it starts to thicken, so it’s a very fast method.
Once you realize how easy it is to make your own teriyaki sauce you might never buy it from a store again.
This is not a traditional Japanese recipe. More traditional Japanese teriyaki sauces are not thickened or flavored as much as this, they really are much more of a simple light marinade. This version is adapted to our American tastes and is meant to be closer to what you’ll find in a neighborhood street corner teriyaki joint in Seattle. We like a more sweet and thick sauce to coat our teriyaki chicken.
A lot of the ingredients are listed as optional, because the great thing about this recipe is that it's really flexible. I’ve given you the basic way that I do it most of the time, and you can customize yours from there. So you can add more or less sweetness with the honey and sugar, more or less garlic or ginger, swap out the juice, leave out the sesame, etc. There’s no wrong way as long as you like how it tastes.
A few other notes about this recipe:
Most recipes have water instead of juice, and more sugar added. But I like the extra splash of flavor from the pineapple juice, and that it adds sweetness without as much processed sugar. But if you don't like pineapple you can just swap that out for water, and then you'll probably want to add a bit more sugar or honey. You could also use all brown sugar or all honey instead of a mix of both. I like the depth of flavor that the two different sweeteners add, but it’s not mandatory.
The corn start is for thickening, so feel free to adjust that amount if you like your sauce more or less thick. If you’ve not cooked with corn starch much, you need to know that it does need to be dissolved in cold liquid before adding to a hot sauce, otherwise you will get lumps. So if you decide you want your sauce thicker after it's simmering you will need to make a slurry with a couple tablespoons of liquid (water, juice, soy sauce, etc.) and then pour that into the simmering sauce while whisking to avoid lumps.
The optional hoisin adds a bit of extra depth of flavor and is intended to imitate the flavor in my personal favorite bottled sauce, but again, optional. You could try adding a little Chinese oyster sauce instead, I love that flavor too, and it’s especially great if you want to make a teriyaki salmon or other fish.
The sesame seeds don't add much flavor but they give a nice bit of texture. Feel free to leave them out if you don’t have them.
If you use fresh ginger you will need to let this simmer long enough to cook and break that down a bit, otherwise the enzymes in the fresh ginger will affect the texture of your meat.
Easy Pineapple Teriyaki Sauce
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
The great thing about this recipe is that it's really flexible, so you can add more or less sweetness with the honey and sugar, more or less garlic or ginger, swap out the juice, etc.
- The corn start is for thickening, so feel free to adjust that amount if you like your sauce more or less thick. It does need to be dissolved in cold liquid before adding to a hot sauce though, so if you decide you want your sauce thicker after it's simmering you will need to make a slurry with some water (or juice, soy sauce, etc.) and then pour that into the simmering sauce while whisking to avoid lumps
- The optional hoisin adds a bit of extra depth of flavor and is intended to imitate the flavor in my personal favorite bottled sauce.
- If you don't like pineapple you can just swap that out for water, and then you'll probably want to add a bit more sugar or honey.
- The sesame seeds don't add much flavor but they give a nice bit of texture. Feel free to leave them out.
- If you use fresh ginger you will need to let this simmer long enough to cook and break that down a bit, otherwise the enzymes in the fresh ginger will affect the texture of your meat.