Asian sauce — soy, sesame & citrus
The sauce that already gathers everything: salty, sour, aromatic and umami. One spoonful, and the simplest dish turns deep.
Here is one of my key sauces: a facilitator of richness. In a few ingredients it already gathers a spread of flavours and, above all, umami — that fifth taste that gives body and makes you salivate. Soy sauce brings the glutamate, sesame the roundness, citrus the tension, garlic and ginger the breath.
It is the universal base for bowls, raw vegetables, zucchini noodles, steamed vegetables. And it is also the trunk of my Satay sauce.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp soy sauce (or unpasteurised tamari)
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- The juice of 1 lemon (or lime)
- 1 grated garlic clove
- 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
- Optional: freshly ground pepper
- Optional: 1 tbsp tahini (for roundness)
- Optional: toasted sesame oil, fresh chopped coriander
- Optional: 1 tsp agave or maple syrup — or the sweetness of a blended sweet vegetable (carrot, sweet potato, courgette)
- Optional: sesame seeds, chopped spring onion
- Optional umami: 1 tsp miso or a touch of dried shiitake powder
Method
- 1
In a bowl, whisk the soy sauce, sesame oil and lemon juice.
- 2
Add the grated garlic and ginger; season with pepper.
- 3
For a rounder sauce, whisk in a spoon of tahini, which emulsifies and thickens it.
- 4
Balance: a touch of agave — or a blended sweet vegetable (carrot, sweet potato, courgette) — rounds out the salt and acid. To multiply the umami, melt in a little miso or shiitake powder.
- 5
Finish with coriander, sesame seeds and spring onion. Taste, adjust the acid and salt.
The tip
The secret of this sauce is an umami synergy: the glutamate of soy sauce, when it meets the guanylate of dried shiitake, does not add up — it multiplies, several times over. The tahini brings its roundness and precious calcium. A sauce that nourishes as much as it delights.
Where I find it
Unpasteurised tamari and miso: Japanese or organic grocer. Sesame oil and tahini: Biovie. Ginger and citrus: the market.
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