Soy-less Sauce Recipe
Quality soy sauce is a revelation. Made from natural fermentation (mold is grown on soy beans and wheat then aged for many months), it’s practically a gift from the umami gods.
From my days trying to be a ramen chef, I grew a huge appreciation for soy sauce done right. I learned that most of the soy sauce at grocery stores is fake; it’s basically caramel and other flavoring in water. It lacks the maturity and nuance that you can only find in a far more expensive (and far harder to acquire) bottle of the good stuff.
I also learned that the gluten-free versions are trash. Celiacs, and I’m sorry, but you’re missing out! And folks with soy intolerance? I feel you.
So when one of my recipe tests with zero soy and zero wheat ended up tasting, looking, and smelling like a mature, umami-rich soy sauce, I was ecstatic. Somehow, I had stumbled upon a recipe for soy sauce that has no soy, no gluten, and can be made in a fraction of the time as real soy sauce. Better yet, it has subtle, earthy notes that many soy sauces fail to achieve. Perfect to use as a dipping sauce for gyoza.
Oh ya – and there are only two ingredients.
About the recipe
So how is a soy-free, gluten-free soy-less sauce possible? Fermentation. And mushrooms. And time.
Here, I’ll detail the recipe in full. Along the way, I’ll teach you what you need to know about fermentation and dehydration. To be clear, it still takes like 8 days to make. But the time you invest in this will be worth it, you’ll have an endless supply of a gluten-free soy sauce substitute with subtle mushroom notes, and you can use those fermentation skills elsewhere too :-)
THE methods
In this recipe, we’re going to ferment cremini mushrooms using lacto-fermentation. Then we’re going to dehydrate the fermented mushrooms. Finally, we’re going to make a “tea” with the dehydrated fermented mushrooms. That tea is our soy sauce.
Step 1: Fermenting mushrooms
Fermentation (specifically lacto-fermentation) is a natural process where good bacteria (called lactobacillus) break down the sugars in foods to form lactic acid. Lactic acid is sour in a good way. For example, pickles, kimchi, and sauerkraut are all made via lacto-fermentation.
Since the lactobacillus bacteria can survive in salt and most other bacteria cannot, it’s really easy to lacto-ferment fruits and vegetables. In fact, it’s so easy that you literally just have to add salt. That’s right, if you weren’t aware, pickles are just salty cucumbers that have fermented their way to their own funky vibe.
Now, to make sure you are fermenting safely, it’s a little more complex than salting at random. Here are the rules (and we’ll go through the specific steps later on):
You need to add the right amount of salt. You need around 2% of the weight of the fruit or vegetable in salt. It’s helpful to have a digital scale so you can measure in grams.
You need to ensure that the salted fruit or vegetable isn’t exposed to air. The easiest way to do this is to ensure that the salted fruit or vegetable is submerged in liquid. For a vegetable like mushrooms (which are made of like 85% water), we can actually submerge the mushroom in its own liquid.
You need to ferment at around room temperature. Somewhere between 60f to 80f is ideal.
I’ll walk through the steps to ferment the mushrooms for this recipe. First, here is the equipment I use.
1. Wide-mouthed mason jar
This is the vessel in which you’ll be fermenting the mushrooms.
2. Fermentation lid
When the fermentation is doing its thing, air escapes. We want air to exit the mason jar so that it doesn’t explode from built-up pressure. But we also don’t want to let air in (because that can let the wrong bacteria take hold). This lid has a one-way valve to allow for this.
3. Fermentation weights
We want to ensure that the mushrooms aren’t exposed to air. A glass weight like this ensures that the mushrooms are submerged under their own liquid rather than exposed to air.
4. Scale
You need a scale that measures to the gram, because we’re going to add exactly 2% of the mushroom’s weight in salt.
Here are the steps for fermenting the mushrooms. The only ingredients are cremini (small brown) mushrooms and salt. You’ll need at least a couple pounds of mushrooms to produce a couple cups of soy-less sauce, but the recipe below will scale for any quantity.
Lightly wash any dirt from the mushrooms using a damp paper towel.
Chop the mushrooms in quarters. This will make it easier to pack them in the jar later.
Weigh the mushrooms with the scale in grams. Pull out your calculator and calculate what 2% of that weight is by multiplying by 0.02. For example, 2% of 600g is 12g.
Weigh out salt equaling the 2% number you just calculated. In the example, I’d weigh out 12g of salt.
In a bowl, mix the mushrooms and the salt.
Transfer the mushroom and salt mixture to the mason jar. Be sure not to leave any salt behind! Ensure that the mushrooms are packed (loosely) towards the bottom of the jar. This is because a subsequent step is to let the salt seep juices from the mushrooms, and we want the mushrooms to be low enough in the jar that the juices cover the mushrooms.
Cover the mushrooms with the fermentation weight then close the jar with the fermentation lid.
Wait! Store the jar at room temperature. Over the next couple days, the salt will seep juices from the mushrooms until the mushrooms are fully submerged in their own liquid. If two full days have passed and the mushrooms aren’t submerged and held beneath the liquid by the fermentation weight, feel free to open the jar and adjust the mushrooms. With clean hands, you can push down on the fermentation weight to help condense the mushrooms and expel more juices if needed.
And that’s it! At around day 7, the mushrooms will be fermented enough for this recipe. But note! The specific amount of time varies on the temperature and other factors. I recommend using a spoon to taste the liquid at day 6. If it is slightly less sour than a pickle, you’re good! If not, give it a couple more days.
For the rest of the recipe, we’re only going to use the fermented mushrooms. But feel free to save that mushroom liquid for another purpose.
Step 2: DEHYDRATING FERMENTED mushrooms
The next step is to dehydrate the the fermented mushrooms. We’re dehydrating the mushrooms because the soy-less sauce is essentially a fermented mushroom tea, and we need to concentrate the flavors in the fermented mushroom in order to create that tea. The dehydration also adds its own flavors through the maillard reaction.
Assuming your oven does not go as low as 130f, you’ll need a dehydrator to complete this recipe.
There are many workable dehydrators out there for very cheap. But once you really get into dehydrating (especially dehydrating fermented fruits… ah!), you’ll probably do what I did and toss one of those to buy an Excalibur. These guys are the real deal, and the square form factor ends up being very helpful.
The steps here are simple: transfer the fermented mushrooms to the dehydrator, then set the dehydrator to 130f. Keep them in the dehydrator until they are completely dry, which could take 8-12 hours.
Step 3: FINISHING your SOY-lESS SAUCE
The final step is to create a mushroom tea of sorts with your dehydrated fermented mushrooms. To do so:
Put the mushrooms in a pot with around 5x their weight in water.
Add the mushrooms
Bring to a near simmer (like 176f) for 30 minutes.
Strain and refrigerate.
Taste the salt level. Add more salt if required. More salt will make this last longer in the fridge, so consider what you’re using it for before salting.
And that’s it! Haha. I know it took 8 days, but we’re still months ahead of the folks that are fermenting real soy sauce. And this has a unique, not-quite-mushroomy taste that you can’t buy in stores (yet). I usually use my soy-less sauce in about a week or two, so I recommend doing the same. If you’re concerned about it not lasting (despite all these preservation techniques!), you could also freeze cubes of it in an ice tray.
Mixing it up
If you’re not satisfied with your soy sauce, or if you loved it and want to make an even better one, there are a few ways you can change or improve it for next time:
Try different mushrooms. Porcini would be incredible. I’ve tried with chanterelles, too.
Try different levels of fermentation. You might find you prefer to over- or under-ferment the mushrooms. Once you get a hang of this, you can taste the mushroom juice at different points of the fermentation process to dial in your preference.
Add aromatics during the infusion part. Thyme? Lemongrass? You could even add dried koji (the moldy rice used to make miso) if you want to bring this even closer to the traditional methods of fermentation used in soy sauce.
Reduce it. After straining, you can also reduce this further to make a mushroom glaze. You could also use it to kickstart a beurre blanc :-)
